Open Stack

On Tue, Nov 20, 2018, at 11:49 AM, Ian Wienand wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 11:09:29AM -0800, Clark Boylan wrote:
> > Both ideas seem sound to me and I think we should try to implement
> > them for the Infra team. I propose that we require agenda updates 24
> > hours prior to the meeting start time and if there are no agenda
> > updates we cancel the meeting. Curious to hear if others think this
> > will be helpful and if 24 hours is enough lead time to be helpful.
> 
> My concern here is that we have standing items of priority tasks
> updates that are essentially always there, and action item follow-up
> from the prior meeting.  Personally I often find them very useful.
> 
> Having attended many in-person waffling weekly "status update"
> meetings etc. I feel the infra one *is* very agenda focused.  I also
> think there is never an expectation anyone is in the meeting; in fact
> more so that we actively understand and expect people aren't there.
> 
> So I think it would be fine to send out the agenda 24 hours in
> advance, and make a rule that new items post that will skip to the
> next week, so that if there's nothing of particular interest people
> can plan to skip.
> 
> This would involve managing the wiki page better IMO.  I always try to
> tag my items with my name and date for discussion because clearing it
> out is an asychronous operation.  What if we made the final thing in
> the meeting after general discussion "reset agenda" so we have a
> synchronisation point, and then clearly mark on the wiki page that
> it's now for the next meeting date?
> 
> But I don't like that infra in general skips the meeting.  Apart from
> the aforementioned standing items, people start thinking "oh my thing
> is just little, I don't want to call a meeting for it" which is the
> opposite of what we want to keep communication flowing.  For people
> actively involved but remote like myself, it's a loss of a very
> valuable hour to catch up on what's happening even with just the
> regular updates.
> 
> -i

Given that the goal here is to better accommodate those in timezones where the meeting may not be the easiest to attend I think this feedback is important.

What if instead of canceling meetings we allowed for standing agenda items with the expectation that the meeting continues to be weekly, but ask that any new agenda items be in place 24 hours before the meeting start time. Anything that comes in after that can be deferred to the next meeting.

This allows people to prepare as necessary and skip the meeting if it doesn't directly impact them.

To summarize: "Meeting agenda items should be in place 24 hours prior to meeting start. We will continue to have standing items for priority efforts and meetings will occur weekly. If a specific agenda doesn't directly affect you, you should feel free to skip the meeting and eat dinner or get some rest"

Clark