Meeting Policies

So that we aren't wasting staff time, we're tightening up meetings as of 2017.

HipChat Meetings

Once a week, all departments are to update the staff room with departmental progress. This can be as quick as "nothing was done this week" or "we cleaned and answered our RT queue." The staff are encouraged to ask questions or discuss updates as they see fit.

This point of this is to enhance our departmental update section of our meetings so that we can run through the updates quickly and maybe have a couple minutes of discussion or additional updates, but otherwise move on quickly instead of taking up the whole meeting.

There will be a weekly day/time set, but if you can't make that time for any reason, you can submit yours early, or late. It is HipChat so we can discuss items any time. The meeting time is mostly so that more people will be online to discuss the updates at one time. Additionally, late additions to the discussion are welcome and encouraged in HipChat if you aren't available when everyone else is discussing a topic.

All staff are encouraged to keep up with discussions in the staff room, and take any largely off-topic or non-staff related discussion to the general room.

HipChat Questions

We are largely encouraging staff to ask technical or departmental questions in the HipChat staff room instead of spending time at meetings on them. If your email isn't working, say it in the staff room even if you don't know who to @-mention (hint: it's @sammich and @thomas).

Additionally, the general staff meeting is not the time to ask questions that could otherwise be discussed in HipChat with your department heads. Please use your departmental rooms or the main staff room to discuss items for your department, then update the staff room on your next weekly update.

If you ask a question in a meeting that would be more appropriate to ask in HipChat you may be told to ask in HipChat rather than spending meeting time on it.

Announcements

Although meetings will still be a place the uppers can make announcements, we will be working to handle more announcements via mailing list and HipChat so that they will take up less meeting time.

Meeting Structure

The meeting format of structured meeting for an hour and mingle/work time for an hour seems to be working quite well.

First Hour

For approximately 1 hour of our meeting time, we we have discussion and brainstorming sessions. Due to limited time, brainstorming sessions may have time limits. Staff are encouraged to add to or continue brainstorming in HipChat.

Questions may still be asked and answered but depending on the question and the time limitations of the meeting, we may request that staff re-ask questions in HipChat.

This period is as short as possible so that we can roll into mingle/work time as soon as possible, but it may be more than an hour.

Second Hour

The second part of our meeting is reserved as mingle time and getting-stuff-done time. You are welcome and encouraged to bring your laptop and spend the time working on anything you need to do for your department. Another great use of the time would be to have your department have a meeting or discussion, or have a meeting or discussion with another department if you need to.

The time is also useful for just talking with your fellow staff and getting to know them.

Meeting Agendas

As much as possible, meeting topics are set in advance of the meeting. If you would like your topic added to the agenda for discussion or brainstorming, please contact Beta in HipChat so that it can be worked into the agenda.

Bringing up new topics of discussion during the meeting is allowed but is discouraged because it can make the first section of the meeting longer than necessary.