How to make meetings less awful
A framework of assessing and planning more useful UX meetings
How often do you leave a meeting and think "Gee, that was a waste of time?" About 51% of meetings are rated as poor; not just ok, poor.
Poorly run meetings can be frustrating, demoralizing, and counterproductive. How can determine if a meeting was worthwhile and use that feedback to get better at planning a useful agenda?
In this article, you will learn how to assess whether a meeting was productive or not and establish a plan to reduce unproductive meetings.
What’s the point of a meeting anyway?
In the face of countless Zoom calls that seem to go nowhere, it can be tempting to say that we should eliminate all meetings. But abandoning all meetings would probably be misguided; the most ambitious and successful corporate meeting cutbacks recognize the necessity of meetings to ensure the smooth flow of business, projects, and operations.
We need some meetings. We can’t eliminate all meetings, but we can eliminate ineffective ones. To accomplish that, we need to understand why we meet and learn to objectively evaluate outcomes.
At a basic level, the purpose of a meeting is to bring a group of two or more people together to have discussions, make decisions, and solve problems about a given subject that couldn’t be otherwise suited for independent work or asynchronous communications1.
Now that we understand why we meet, we need to understand the different outcomes a meeting can have.
Every meeting has one of four outcomes
Any meeting can have one of four outcomes: Conclusion, Advancement, Termination, or Stagnation2. The key to running effective meetings is to be aware of these outcomes, diagnose them in your meetings, and learn from your results to plan for more productive agendas.
Stagnations
A Stagnation is any meeting without significant decisions, actions, or developments that move the subject forward. These are the meetings that people feel are a waste of time because they are. For example, imagine you’re in a meeting to discuss your UX research roadmap; but the meeting gets bogged down in theoretical discussions, and fails to produce concrete decisions or plans.
Emily, a UX researcher, walked into the conference room for the weekly meeting, ready for discussions to prioritize projects for the team's roadmap. The team delved into theoretical discussions about user personas and debated the nuances of different design approaches. However, the discussions lacked a focus on making concrete decisions. The room buzzed with ideas, but none of them translated into a solid plan for the upcoming research initiatives.
As time passed, Emily observed a rehash of past debates without reaching a conclusive decision. The team seemed stuck in a loop, circling around the same arguments and viewpoints. Critical issues, such as prioritizing user feedback and deciding on methodologies for upcoming user research, were deferred repeatedly. The meeting ended with a lingering sense of frustration and an overwhelming feeling that valuable time had been wasted.
Reflecting on the experience, Emily realized that the meeting had turned into a Stagnation. It had all the hallmarks – a lack of concrete decisions, rehashed discussions without resolution, and no meaningful change to the status of the team's projects. Determined to avoid such unproductive scenarios in the future, Emily decided to take proactive steps to ensure that meetings were focused on driving the UX research roadmap forward with clear decisions and actionable plans.Stagnations are the number one meeting outcome you should avoid.
To recognize Stagnations look for:
Meetings where you can’t point to a concrete decision or action items
Rehashed discussions and debates that don’t reach a resolution
The project or subject discussed is in a state of inertia, essentially unchanged by meeting
Key issues are deferred or left without a plan for resolution
Terminations
A Termination is where an initiative or project is halted, canceled, or never starts because of decisions made during a meeting. For example, during a planning meeting, you could learn of budget constraints, competing priorities, or feasibility issues that put an indefinite hold on your UX research project.
To recognize Terminations look for:
Meetings that reveal significant blockers that make progress impossible
If a project, feature, or research initiative was permanently stopped or canceled
A clearly communicated decision that the subject of the meeting is no longer being pursued
Terminations are not an ideal meeting outcome, but they will inevitably happen. The key to Terminations is that you want to get to them earlier rather than later to minimize wasted effort.
Advancements
An Advancement is where the subject of the meeting is pushed forward thanks to specific actions or decisions made during or shortly after the call. In other words, the meeting meaningfully advances the primary subject of the agenda. For example, if you enter a meeting with a rough proposal for a research project and conclude with agreement from all stakeholders to kick off the project and draft timelines and milestones that would represent a meaningful Advancement.
Sarah, a UX researcher, walked into the conference room with a rough proposal for a new research project. The team gathered to discuss the potential directions and objectives.
During the meeting, they identified key research questions, methodologies, and a timeline for execution. Stakeholders provided valuable input, and by the end of the discussion, there was unanimous agreement to kick off the project.
Clear action items were assigned to team members, outlining their roles and responsibilities. Sarah, as the project lead, was tasked with coordinating the research efforts, while other team members were assigned specific tasks related to data collection, analysis, and prototyping.
Post-meeting, Sarah circulated a document outlining the agreed-upon timelines and milestones.To recognize Advancements look for:
Concrete actions or decisions resulting from the meeting
The meeting contributed to advancing the project status forward
Clear action items and assigned owners
Most meetings that we would deem as “useful” are Advancements. Of the four categories in the C.A.T.S. framework, your focus should be on Advancement. Stagnation and Advancement exist on a sort of sliding scale, by reducing one you increase the other. Poor planning and poor execution in conducting a meeting lead to Stagnation, while the opposite leads to Advancement. Generally, the better you become at planning and conducting meetings that end in Advancements, the more effective you can be, and the more satisfied stakeholders will be with your meetings.
Conclusions
A Conclusion is any meeting where the subject or project has reached a successful end-state thanks to decisions, actions, or developments made during or shortly after the meeting. For example, if you’re a UX researcher this might be a findings readout at the end of a research project. Essentially, the readout marks the end of your project, aside from addressing loose ends.
To recognize Conclusions, look for:
Meetings that mark the end of projects or initiatives
There is no further work needed, or minimal action items to be addressed, to reach an ultimate goal of a larger initiative
No future meetings on the same subject should be needed
A Conclusion is a positive end-state for any meeting, but not every meeting can or should end in a Conclusion, and it will likely take several Advancements to get there.
Applying the C.A.T.S. framework
Now that you’re aware of the four outcomes any meeting can have, it’s time to put that knowledge into practice.
Planning & conducting meetings that end in Advancement
When planning your meetings, remember that Conclusions and Terminations are tricky to influence; effective meeting organizers focus on reducing Stagnation and promoting Advancement.
To plan for effective meetings that result in Advancement, follow these general rules:
Start by identifying the possible decision(s), action(s), or outcome(s) that could result in an Advancement; these form your meeting’s purpose.
Plan an agenda that reflects the purpose of the meeting.
Share the agenda ahead of the meeting — make it clear to attendees what the meeting will accomplish.
Make sure attendees are in the Goldilocks zone; too many people can add swirl to a discussion, but missing a key stakeholder can postpone decisions and cause Stagnation. Include the right set of folks relevant to the decisions and discussions in the agenda.
Begin each meeting by restating the agenda and ideal outcome(s) the group will accomplish by the end (e.g., “Today we’ll review issues identified in recent usability testing, then we'll prioritize the issues, considering their impact on the overall user experience, and form an action plan for addressing them. By the end of this meeting, we’ll have a shared understanding of issues affecting our users, and a timetable for addressing them in order of criticality.”).
End the meeting by summarizing the decisions the group has made, and assigning action items to individuals.
Finally, share your meeting summary and action items with the team via email, document, slack, etc.
Tracking your meetings
What gets measured, gets managed. Track the result of each meeting that you run; make note of the outcome (Conclusion, Advancement, Termination, or Stagnation), with a brief description of what happened during the meeting.
You can take these notes wherever is easiest for you, the key is to make it easy and quick enough that tracking C.A.T.S. outcomes becomes a habit.
Acting on your results
After noting the result of each meeting you conduct, you’ll want to act on that information. I imagine most of us are familiar with our project closeout procedures, or how to remove projects from a backlog, so I won’t belabor how to act on Conclusions and Terminations. Again, we’ll focus on Advancement and Stagnation.
After Advancement, you may want to:
Ensure that decisions and action items were documented, assigned to individuals, and shared in writing with the attendees
Implement a way to track progress on action items (e.g., update your project management tool)
Communicate the outcomes to broader teams and stakeholders who need to stay informed
Recognize and/or celebrate the contributions of the team or individuals
Reflect on what worked and consider incorporating successful strategies in future meetings
Begin planning the next meeting's agenda
After Stagnation, you may want to:
Analyze the reasons for the Stagnation and reflect on what could have been done differently
Consider seeking feedback from attendees, or coaching from a mentor
Incorporate reflections, feedback, and coaching in how you plan and conduct future meetings
Develop an action plan on how to move the stalled agenda items forward
Follow-up with participants to ensure they understand their role and responsibilities in driving progress
Clarify expectations for future meetings with the team
Performing occasional audits
After tracking C.A.T.S. outcomes for a few weeks, you may have enough information to observe trends. You may find it worthwhile to perform an occasional meeting audit, where you look at the results across several meetings. By observing these outcomes over longer timeframes, you might identify sources of frustration and inefficiency in your meetings. For example, you might notice that meetings related to a particular project often end in Stagnation; this could be a sign that either you’re meeting too frequently relative to the pace of the project OR that ineffective planning is stalling the project’s progress.
The bottom line
We have come to expect that meetings will be a waste of time; that’s a shame and doesn’t need to be the case. This article introduces the C.A.T.S. framework - a tool for UX practitioners to evaluate the outcomes of their meetings. By understanding and applying the C.A.T.S. framework, UX research leaders can increase the effectiveness of their meetings; resulting in better outcomes, stakeholder satisfaction, and efficient use of their team’s time.
Until next time,
I always appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback. Reach out if you give the C.A.T.S. framework a try this month.
Cheers,
Thomas
This definition doesn’t acknowledge the nebulous concept of a meeting’s role in building relationships. Rapport and team building are noteworthy secondary benefits to having meetings, but they’re challenging to quantify and fold into the framework presented in this article. The C.A.T.S. framework, even missing this nuance, is still useful for monitoring and managing the utility of your meetings. As George Box says, “All models are wrong, some are useful.”
Reference note: This model was strongly influenced by the work of Neil Rackham; a research fellow turned consultant who studied what behaviors and attitudes lead to successful negotiations and sales. In the course of his research, he developed a framework for judging the relative success of sales calls into four categories. I came across this work in 2021; at the time I was dissatisfied with how many meetings seemed to go to waste and was looking for a way to better diagnose what happens during a meeting. I recontextualized and repurposed Rackham’s framework to apply to my work as a UX researcher & strategist.