Ever drive to a mall and park your car and then after you finish shopping, you come back and you can’t find it? This gets worse if you own say a white Honda Accord, or a brown Camry. You look and look and look. And after all that searching and frustration, where do you find it? Exactly where you left it.
But parking lots can be a good thing too, especially if you can use them to park items that are going to crash your agenda. Here’s how it works:
You’re having your weekly status meeting. It used to cost $322. But because you started keeping time you were able to get the meeting to run and hour and ten minutes (about $250). Then we were able to save about $40 a meeting more by having people show for their part of the meeting and leave when they were done. We’re down to $210 per meeting (saving $112). How can you get that last ten minutes back?
One way is by setting up a parking lot for items that come up that are not on the agenda. We’ve all experienced an issue coming up in a meeting that is going to need more than just a minute’s reflection. If those things come up, write them on a whiteboard (our favorite), a flip chart pad or a slip of paper and let the participants know that the item will be dealt with at another time so that the agenda can be completed on time.
At end of the meeting, set a separate meeting for those involved to discuss the parking lot items. If the matter is urgent, you can continue the meeting until it’s resolved. The important thing is the more that you practice this discipline, the more likely it is your group will stick to agendas and not get sidetracked on non-agenda items that aren’t on them.
Parking lots are great for even informal meetings. They let everyone know that the matter won’t get lost and allows you to focus on the agenda previously agreed upon. Using these parking lots, you may not find your car, but you won’t lose your time.
Upcoming in this series, additional strategies for making meetings more effective:
End on time…every time
Dude, where is my car?
Dispatches From The Front 