Meetings

All Meetings
- Date and Time of Meetings
- Clarity of Purpose at Meetings
Record of Meetings
General Meeting Guidelines
Scrum Meetings
All-Hands Meetings
Guild Meetings
Recurring or Overlapping Meetings
One-on-one Meetings

Purpose

Help everyone at Countable understand the different types of meetings we hold, and how to get the most benefit out of the fewest meetings.

Scope

Defines expectations for all meetings, then goes into details for specific types of meetings.

All Meetings

All the expectations below are required for meetings with 5 or more people, or that include outside participants. For smaller groups within our own team who feel they have a clear goal, a more informal approach may be taken (the agenda and minutes are optional)

Date and Time of Meetings

Meetings should, where possible, be booked during the business hours of the attendees, because we want to encourage work-life balance on the team (and any formal expectation to regularly meet outside business hours is damaging to that)
Our calendar is the source of truth regarding meeting times, attendees and cancellation status. All updates to meeting times go directly in the calendar.
Meetings start on time and stop on time. If someone is late, start without them. Anyone who is late or not attending should notify the team in advance. If it’s a meeting with 2 attendees, if neither of them joins within a 10-minute timeframe, the meeting will be deemed canceled. Non-participation without notice will be treated seriously and may lead to disciplinary consequences.
When meeting with external stakeholders, book 50 minute meetings generally (or 25) so there are 5 minute gaps for our brains to context switch between meetings and to write minutes.
When meeting online, like in whereby, list the specific room link in the meeting invite.
When arranging an online meeting, if it’s a 1-on-1 meeting, please ensure to confirm the availability of the participant beforehand. For meetings with more than 2 attendees, proceed to send out the invites promptly. This way, the meeting will appear on their calendar, allowing them to easily join when they are available.

Clarity of Purpose at Meetings

The purpose and agenda of the meeting must be clear and made available to the attendees (ie, listed in the meeting event details on the calendar) because that allows people who don’t need to be there, to skip. It’s the responsibility of all present to ask about this.
You should only attend a meeting if you have a contribution to make (based on reading the agenda). If you just need to get information from the minutes. Ask the attendees for minutes if you can’t find them.
Recurring meetings should review the previous meeting’s follow-ups/action items. Open up the last week’s minutes (or Trello board) and review them.
If you are presenting in a meeting, send out the meeting goal, agenda and materials (such as slides) in advance so the attendees can get in the right headspace. Ask for feedback on your agenda, such as topics they group thinks will help with the goal.
In general, try to make meetings shorter and more specific. If possible, make the goal and agenda visible in the meeting.

Record of Meetings

Someone should ‘chair’ the meeting, which means they ensure we have a clear agenda and purpose (loosely, allowing for useful organic tangents as long as they don’t dominate). This is the “Scrum Master” if it’s a Sprint meeting.
Someone shold be the ‘scribe’. They record any action-items and key information the team needs (the “output”), and make sure the minutes are sent to everyone present because that not only ensures the meeting content isn’t forgotten, but further allows non-essential staff to skip knowing they can just review minutes.
Meetings should have an “output” written. For Scrum, this can simply be updated Trello board and KR scores. Other meetings should have a stream of minutes in a Google Doc that is continually added-to (most recent first). Here’s a template.

Each time you meet, fill out:

Meeting minutes template: (copy this for each meeting)
Date: (202X-XX-XX)
Agenda (topics discussed, with headlines): 
(add bullets here)
Follow-ups (who does what by when):
(add bullets here)

Minutes are just the “headlines”. What’s the important point?
Include decisions and key information. Action items can be noted, but should be should be transcribed into Trello where possible.
Send a follow-up email with these minutes if it includes any external stakeholders.
3W rule: Meeting follow-up actions must contain the three Ws: WHO does WHAT by WHEN

General Meeting Guidelines

Work to create an atmosphere of psychological safety. Detect concerns of individuals and shed light on them.
The maximum number of people at any meeting should be limited to 7 (except occasional company-wide meets).
Avoid speaking for more than two minutes without pausing and letting people respond, so you can listen to your audience and steer your material to be more helpful. Meetings should be interactive, not monologues.
Turn on your camera. Generally if you don’t have your camera on, you shouldn’t be at the meeting. Communication is 80% non verbal.
- If you have a good reason to keep your camera off, then please share that reason.
- Spend a little time ensuring you have good audio, lighting, and appropriate dress. Whoever is speaking needs to see your facial expression in order to assess comprehension or they have no idea if you’re listening or understand or agree with what was said.
Take notes! When you’re at a meeting you should have a writing implement, Trello or some other mechanism.
Ask questions and contribute actively. Everyone should speak at meetings.

Scrum Meetings

All active projects should have a Sprint meeting every 1 to 4 weeks.

Discuss how the current sprint will accomplish our “OKR” for the project.
See Scrum for full instructions.

All-Hands Meetings

The entire team meets once per month to plan work pipeline and roadmap at a high level, and practice new processes together. Attendance at this meeting is mandatory.

Guild Meetings

We currently have a UX, DevOps, Operations, and Developers Guild meetings, periodically. The purpose of this meeting is:

Standardize, train, and define how we work in key technical disciplines to become the best in our fields.
Present and review each others’ work and provide peer feedback.
Hold collaborative design activities such as “Mob” programming to create something together in the meeting.

Dev Guild presentation guidelines: Good:

use real code examples
focus on how it relates to our team and company
discuss a real problem our team faces or opportunity to improve
other topics are ok too, but please propose your topic for review first to establish why you want to cover it
interactive portions are great! (ie mob coding) Avoid:
“my favourite framework” talks
focusing entirely on performance and other public information

Recurring or Overlapping Meetings

Goal - Minimize disruption by changing meeting times. People have busy schedules that rely on regularity. So, avoid moving meeting times when possible, especially if there are lots of attendees.
If there are overlapping meetings, follow the below steps:
- Assess Importance - Determine which meeting is more critical or time-sensitive. Are there key stakeholders or decision-makers in one meeting that require your presence more urgently?
- Advance Notice - As a general rule, it’s best to inform others in advance about scheduling conflicts. If you’re an attendee, providing 1-2 days’ notice for weekly meetings and at least a week’s notice for monthly meetings is considerate. If you’re the facilitator, please be even more mindful and aim to notify participants well in advance to get another person cover for you.
- Communicate Proactively
```
Hi [Organizer's Name], I've found a scheduling conflict between our meeting at [Time] and a prior commitment. 
I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Can we explore alternative solutions?
I'd like to avoid rescheduling to minimize disruptions to your schedule.
I can send my update in advance and review meeting minutes afterward, especially for action items.
As the facilitator, I'd like to request [Name] to step in, and I'll handle the next one. Thank you!
```
Calendar Management - Regularly review your calendar to catch potential conflicts in advance. To avoid conflict, you can check the schedule of other attendees. To do that, follow the steps below.

Missing members - If someone is on vacation they may wish to send notes in advance for their contribution to the meeting if possible. They should try to avoid blocking their team in their absence as always. For recurring team meetings, if the facilitator can attend but some members are missing, the meeting will proceed at the regularly scheduled time. If the facilitator is missing, a backup should take over. If this isn’t possible, cancel the meeting. When cancelling meetings, make sure to inform the attendees thru Slack after cancelling the calendar invite so that they’re aware of the change.
In the event that a meeting must be canceled or you cannot attend but have critical and time-sensitive topics to address, slack the members to initiate discussions and gather inputs or consider scheduling a separate meeting with key stakeholders to address these important topics.
Holidays - If a meeting falls on a Holiday, for Weekly meetings just cancel it and continue the next time. For Monthly meetings, change the scheduled time as early as possible. It can actually be beneficial to put monthly meetings on Tues-Thurs dates to avoid holiday collisions, when possible.

One-on-one Meetings

One-on-one meetings between each manager and reports should be once per month. This is our chance to catch up on what matters, and think about how we can work better together.

People mentioning problems even once is a gift: We can’t fix systemic problems if managers don’t know about them.

As an Employee

This is your time to talk about whatever is on your mind. If you want to talk about what’s going on with your life, hobbies, etc, that’s fine. If you want to talk about work or issues at home or career progression, that’s fine.
Give feedback about what went well last month, and what didn’t. How can we do better from now on?
The discussion is confidential by default, unless there are suggestions or requests that come out of the discussion to relay to the team.
What initiatives would you be interested in working on? Why?

As a Manager

Practice listening. Try to contain the impulse to give advice unless they specifically ask for it for at least the first 10 minutes of the meeting.
Raise anything you felt was a problem. Say how you feel about it, and let them lead.
If they don’t bring it up on their own I’ll ask questions about emotional state and emotional reactions to situations. E.g.,
- “How did you feel about what happened at Countable last month?” (be specific)
- “Are you feeling sufficiently challenged?”
- “What would you like to learn next?”
- “What do you enjoy working on most and what projects are you most proud of?”
- “Which tasks have proven to be the most challenging for you?”
- “When do you find yourself seeking assistance most frequently?”
What work the employee is doing will have the biggest impact?

The First One-on-one

On first one-on-one, ask “tell me about your life starting in kindergarten”. Write down moments of change, decisions on direction and why they were made. 45 mins discussion.
What are the person’s dreams? Ask “what would you like to do most after Countable, if anything was possible? Provide 3 possible visions”. Make dreams columns and put rows for skills necessary for each vision. Ask questions about everything fits together. What skills can be developed in their role?

Evaluation Followup

Every 6 months, the one-on-one will review the recently filled evaluation form.

Employees should check off each job level requirement, and self-promote when they reach completion of their current level. Give the employee a simple desription of what you think would really get them “to the next level”. Make this as actionable and objective as possible, and frame it as a mentor.

Themes

Some ideas to pick from, not needed every month.

Give each other (employee first) you’d like the other to “continue” doing, and something to “consider” changing.
Ask: Who did you work with this month, and how did that go? Why did it go that way?
Ask: What are you learning, and from whom? What are you teaching, and to whom? What would you like to learn?

We hold monthly staff-coordinated, funded team social events. Countable will pay for meals and up to 1 drink for a limit of $20 per month, if you go out with at least one team member in person, or attend a virtual event such as Game Night. Any event must be announced to all team members on #fun or #general.

When conducting social meetings with team members or customers, whether virtually or in person, up to 30 minutes is billable.
In-person meals will be covered, with no specific limit, but we kindly ask that you exercise reasonable judgment. Any expense exceeding $50 per person requires manager approval.
For remote meetings, we can reimburse up to 2 remote meals per month, with a maximum limit of $20 per meal.
Please note that all expenses must be supported by receipts in order to be eligible for reimbursement.