What?

According to at least an interview with Jeff Bezos and a quick web search, Amazon puts into practice a very interesting way of how to do meetings. I don’t know if always and anywhere, but let this be the topic of discussion here also.

The meetings go like this

A meeting starts with 30 minutes silent reading (and annotating and thinking) time for every participant for a 6 page written memo text. Only after that, the discussion (the meeting essentially) starts.

Of course, this is a rough sketch, but it could very well be, that at least in the highest levels of management at Amazon the rules are just like that, with no further details, no exceptions.

Motivation, why?

Let’s skip this basically. Or it will come automatically in the remaining text, as the benefits should be just so obvious. It suffices to know or assume, that at least the non-management employees typically don’t like meetings much (or their frequency, their outcomes, their lack of necessity). Also everyone should agree that efficient, precise and flawless communication seems to be an utopian dream mostly. But we don’t want it to be, so trying anything different and promising is just the way to go.

6 pages? 30 minutes? Every meeting? Rough idea and theory in practice please, and details!

As we don’t know an Amazon insider, and one of them also won’t be sufficient by far, let’s develop the rules, the framework, the details here, of what should be done by whom, where, when, how and why. Questions, that are also already a nice orientation for any meeting or document. We are going to put that on record also. However, the document you are reading – as you notice – already just serves as the first application of the method and will be the starting point of a meeting. A meeting, that has the goal to refine the method and decide about its future usage. Who will take part? To begin with: everyone in the team around the initiator. Ideally this will spread laterally and vertically also.

So, who needs that?

We!

Where?

In a meeting room or online. No hybrids please (personal opinion, as someone, having experienced facing a packed in-person crowd remotely only). The decision is made pragmatically.

How?

Step by step explanation. The one who first feels the urge of scheduling a meeting starts writing down his thoughts. There are no constraints on the structure of the writing. Sure, a rough orientation in the sense of
what, who, where, when, how and why, should always be helpful. We can’t think of all the possible topics and argumentations upfront. And surprise, even a plain presentation (opposed to discussion) won’t exist anymore in the traditional sense. We don’t want advertising shows, where the coolest graphics or memes win. It’s reading. And the facts should stand for themselves. Perhaps the discussion part (the ‘meeting’) is just a short Q&A or some appreciation, that’s okay.

Now let’s further try to anticipate and address some open questions.
Of course, you should not expect the author of the writing to be a single person. It can be a team, it can be started as a list of open questions to be answered and edited by experts in a next step (before the meeting). So, in the end, the initiator of the meeting might very well have contributed only 1% or even nothing at all of the writing. The recommendation is a version controlled markdown editing process. For the practical presentation you have to be creative, whether the markdown is sufficient here also. Everyone should be able to make annotations in a convenient manner at meeting time. Version control would just solve that problem already. But it depends on the audience, if printed *cough* pdf copies are the way to go.

Almost obviously, I would recommend the 6 pages (in DIN A4) as a maximum, not a must. Perhaps, let’s introduce a minimum of 1 page, to fight meetings with too little substance and lack of preparation and research.

Same for the 30 minutes reading time, that’s the maximum. Although it wouldn’t surprise me, if the inventor would insist on that, giving time for thought wandering and flashes of inspiration. We will instead just wait, until the last one is finished. Others are free to do arbitrary things on their mobiles. If someone knows of himself reading slowly, he might start upfront the meeting event. Yes, there is no problem publishing it beforehand.

Mandatory additional stuff, the document has to contain:

• name(s) of the author(s)
• date of creation and last edit (probably automatically anyway)

Come and take pot luck, of what’s the result of the discussion part then.
But it should be one or more of the following:

• a corrected text (live or done afterwards) as agreed upon, serving as a documentation
• tickets to be done, with priorities (can also be detailed afterwards)
• immediate tasks for people
• a follow-up (the need might arise also only later)
• the insight, that this was just a waste of time, or just some learning without further todos (although a documentation will always be the valuable output)

When not to do so

This is important, as of course no one must think, that you aren’t allowed to talk to your colleagues without that heavy weight bureaucratic procedure anymore.

But also for a 3+ people brainstorming session, this might very well be worth trying. Logistically, you might want to be even more flexible then, but you can still apply the rough idea.

But, for everything that gets a date, people and a location attached, and ‘steals’ time from more than two people, let’s argue, that we want to give it a try and hopefully establish it as fruitful rule, gaining beautiful benefits.