When you book a meeting, how long do you book it for? More importantly, how do you decide that?
Odds are you don’t know, or you just go with your calendar app’s default. Often, this decision is defaulted to the most senior person in the meeting; we rely on their gut feel.
Following, my guide on how long a meeting should take. It’s based only on my own experience. But you may find it useful, both in deciding the timespan and setting your expectations, particularly if you’re a rising manager.
There are exactly five types of meetings. Once you know the type, you know the timespan.
Type1: Bottom-up status updates / aka micromanagement
The sole purpose here is for the manager to receive a status update from a direct report. It’s used for resourcing and for moving work forward. The reports get an opportunity to manage up and make sure they are not interrupted with “do you have an update” questions.
As a manager, you’re not looking to discuss things or provide too much input. You should be able to run through a short checklist and guide your reports if a particular item needs immediate attention. I once had a manager who did these meetings standing up, to make sure they moved along faster.
I schedule these meetings for a maximum of 15 minutes. No more. If the team is too big, I split them up. But you can get through about 10 people’s to-do lists in that time.
Type 2: Single objective
“Every meeting needs an agenda,” or so goes popular thinking. I don’t agree, but this type sure does. It has a single objective, a definite desired outcome. You might be reviewing a single document. You’re asking a set of specific questions. Looking for direction on a specific topic. This is not a working or strategy session.
Come well prepared, and you should be able to run this one in no more than 30 minutes.
Type 3: Bi-directional updates or multi-subject
These are meetings where you are either discussing multiple projects or where you not only need to provide updates but ask for direction. Typically you need to provide more context than a decision or a single direction.
I schedule these ones for 1 hour. As a bonus, if we’re quicker in the meeting, I use that time to provide even more context to the team and talk about the bigger picture. Often people feel proud when they end a meeting early because it feels more efficient. But I find, when you already have people’s attention on a particular subject matter, investing those 10 minutes to dig a bit deeper really pays off.
Regardless, I try to run my 1-hour meetings for 1 hour and no more.
Type 4: Collaboration, not brainstorms
These are the meetings where you are collaborating on unfinished work. There’s a fair bit of uncertainty involved. These meetings used to be called “brainstorms,” but there are a number of problems with that term, a topic for another time.
I recommend 90 minutes for these ones. Spend the first 30 articulating and reviewing the problem at hand (for example, reading the brief or reviewing work done prior). You can do that together or individually (a la Jeff Bezos). For the remaining hour, tackle the problem.
Now, I tend to be a person who ideates through discussion, discourse, and debate, that’s where I have my best ideas. That’s why I like to schedule those ones for 90 minutes. But no more! Attention diminishes quickly after that.
Type 5: Personal meeting
This is where people often get it wrong. People tend to schedule workshops for, say, four hours. And then allow 20 minutes for a personal coffee meet.
Asking someone to pay attention to work for 4 hours is draining, but asking them to unwind and talk about their life can be energizing. A well-prepared workshop shouldn’t take more than 1.5 hours (schedule 2 or 3 if you must).
But for a personal meet, give people the space to unwind and get to know each other without a time crunch looming above. There is nothing — nothing! — to be gained from an “efficient” coffee. By the time you’ve finished scraping the surface, you’re parting ways.
If you truly want to get to know your people, spend the time. I’m not saying have a daily 4-hour lunch. But if you’re going to take the time to have a “get to know your team” meeting, then do your best to alleviate the time crunch. Don’t schedule it where you have a hard stop 30 minutes out — that’s often counterproductive. The best stuff doesn’t even start to emerge until after those first 30 minutes.
Did my meeting model get you thinking? Would you change anything for virtual meetings?