On this page you’ll find a recap of learning materials related to the “#NoMeetings: working with fewer, more effective meetings” approach. If you’re interested on remote and async collaboration, follow me on LinkedIn for news and discussions!

#CAS2022 video [Spanish]

#NoMeetings talk from Conferencia Agile Spain 2022, given in La Coruña (Spain) on 11th November, 2022.

LADCnet online meetup video [English]

#NoMeetings talk given at the Lean Agile Delivery & Coaching Network online meetup group, on 8th November, 2022.

Updated slides from January 2023

These are updated slides from the #NoMeetings talk given at ADIDAS Zaragoza on 17th January, 2023. Licensed under Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Graphic recording [Spanish]

Bibliography and extra resources

– References by order of appearance.

• On “the meeting’s struggle”: paper “The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress” (January 2008 DOI:10.1145/1357054.1357072 )
• 🆕 On “state of the art”, regarding the hack of defragmenting your meetings to conglomerate them all together, here is Microsoft’s study about breaks: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/brain-research
• On “culture constraints and enablers”, I’d recommend the book “Reinventing organizations” by Frederic Laloux.
• 🆕 The term “meeting motions” was taken from this great article by John Cutler. What’d happen if we’d treat meetings as a product and not an afterthought?
• About making your meeting’s inventory, as a pro-tip I’d recommend adding your inventory to your Value Stream Map. To learm more on VSM, check the book Value Stream Mapping. You can also read about mapping your Continuous Delivery flow on this Atlassian article (although I’d just start with post-its!).
• On “How we do it at Quaderno.io” , regarding “when to have a meeting”: article “Meetings are toxic” from Basecamp’s “Getting Real” book.
• For improving skills of written communication, here are some great resources:
• Write The Docs community and conferences. Here is their Youtube channel with super interesting talks.
• The technical writing google course and conversion copywriting-101 by CopyHackers, although focused on two specific writing styles, are good, free and can help to improve your written skills.
• For improving skills of Decision making
• Shu-Ha-Ri, as described by Martin Fowler’s article in 2014
• Some of its traps (article in Spanish), inspired by Holacracy
• The framework, Generative decision making process by Samantha Slade
• Another framework, focused on product, https://basecamp.com/shapeup
• For improving skills of learning, I recommend starting with the 6 science-based strategies from https://www.learningscientists.org/. You can also read my two cents on how technical practices are learning practices (article in Spanish), and as so, these learning strategies can be applied to accelerate technical mastery.
• Live-chat tools and The conveyor Belt metaphor, article by Basecamp&cia
• Extra: about “Better Thinking”, which helps decision making:
• I’d recommend following and reading Anne-Laure Le Cunff. Start on this article https://nesslabs.com/how-to-think-better
• For Better Thinking tools, take a look at https://www.liberatingstructures.com/ and https://untools.co/ . For example the Cynefin framework.
• Regarding Systems Thinking, the best book I can recommend is “Thinking in Systems” by Donella Meadows. Another great resource is the website https://thesystemsthinker.com/
• Simplest example of CLD tool (Causal Loop Diagram, technique from Systems Thinking), from “Doughnut Economics” book author Kate Raworth’s children.
• Extra: regarding how meetings enablea new knowledge flow, this article, Meetings, bloody meetings by Harold Jarche contains super insightful links about meetings.
• Extra: super insightful and disruptive article by Gumroad’s founder Sahil Lavingia, No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees.
• 🆕 On the news, lots of noise on January 2023 about Shopify removing all meetings: CNN, Forbes, Bloomberg.