We have too many meetings and emails because tier meetings are not working. I want to fix this in my organization and this is a bit of a brainstorming post to solve this.
Tiered meetings can significantly improve the productivity of an organization as long as they are implemented correctly and the standard process fits the organization. For example, tiered meetings are easy to implement around a value stream in a manufacturing organization with high volume and low variability in production because this requires a limited number of knowledge workers to support. It does not quite work in an organization with low volume and high variability requiring many knowledge workers for production.
If tiered meetings are implemented incorrectly they become more meetings that are piled on top of the other meetings/communications that the tiered meetings were meant to reduce(problem-solving meetings, report-outs, etc).
Current Problems I see with tiered meetings
- If we were to hold a tiered meeting around the value stream it would include too many people (~35+ people at tier 1) leading it to take too long
- The focus is on the daily goals of the siloed department which the meeting is held in
- No clear daily goals for the organization
- Not all stakeholders are involved
- People are not located in the same building making it harder to meet in person
To help solve these problems we need to understand the goals of the tiered meetings:
- Identify the daily goals that everybody needs to work towards
- Quickly connect all stakeholders at that tier level so they can talk in person and address any issues at their level and get any help needed at that moment
- Determine help needed from and information to communicate to the next level in the organization
- Limit the communication to that meeting (and not the rest of the day) so most of the day is spent working to meet the daily goals
What other solutions could be implemented to fit in a low-volume and high-variability organization?
- Make a virtual tier meeting that everybody who is part of a value stream attends every day (or have only the individual stakeholders meet based on the goals of the day)
- We would need to know the daily goals ahead of time.
- Identify the daily goals before the meeting
- The daily goal stakeholders hold sub-meetings discussing what is needed
- For info that is required to be shared, this needs to be typed up and everybody is required to read
- Make an electronic communication tool for escalation