The Meeting That Should Have Been a Flow

Half the recurring meetings I have sat in were compensating for an interface. Somebody has to say out loud what the system never told anyone, so a standing invite appears and nobody questions it again.

That meeting is a design brief in disguise.

How To Spot One

• It is a status read-out. If the first ten minutes are people describing state, the state should be visible somewhere.
• Someone always brings a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is the missing view.
• The same question is asked every week. “Where is this up to?” is a product requirement, not a conversation.

Every recurring meeting about status is a screen somebody has not built yet.

What To Do With It

Sit in it twice with a notebook and write down only the questions people ask. Not the answers — the questions. That list is the specification for the view that replaces the meeting.

Then build the boring version of it. A table, a timestamp, an owner column. It will not photograph well and it will give people an hour a week back.

The best interface I shipped last year deleted a meeting for eleven people.