A tiny taxonomy of meetings
Meetings can be frustrating. But they don’t have to be.
A lot of the frustration comes from unmet expectations. You go into the meeting expecting one outcome, and when it doesn’t materialise, you declare the meeting a waste of time. But had you gone into that same meeting with different expectations, perhaps you would emerge from it in a happier state.
We were talking about this at Clearleft recently and I suggested that a simple little taxonomy of meetings might be a good starting point for avoiding frustration.
Divergent meetings
In a divergent meeting the goal is to generate ideas. These meetings often happen early in a project.
Quantity matters more than quality. Plenty of “yes, and…” rather than “no, but…” to create lots of suggestions. This is not the meeting to point out potential problems with the suggestions.
Convergent meetings
In a convergent meeting the goal is to come to a decision.
The meeting might begin with lots of options on the table. They need to be winnowed down. Poke at them. Dissect them. Ideally dismiss lots of them.
This is not the time to introduce new ideas—save that for a divergent meeting.
Just having those two categories alone could save you a lot of grief. The last thing you want is someone participating in a convergent meeting who thinks it’s a divergent meeting (or the other way around).
Those two categories account for the majority of meetings, but there’s one more category to consider…
Chemistry meetings
In a chemistry meeting there is no tangible output. The goal is to get to know one another.
In a large organisation this might be when multiple departments are going to work together on a project. At an agency like Clearleft, a chemistry meeting between us and the client team is really useful at the beginning of our partnership.
Again, the key thing is expectations. If there are people in a chemistry meeting who are expecting to emerge with a framework or a list or any kind of output, they’re going to be frustrated. But if everyone knows it’s a chemistry meeting there’s no expectation that any decisions are going to be made.
There you have it. A tiny taxonomy of meetings:
- divergent
- convergent
- chemistry
This tiny taxonomy won’t cover every possible kind of meeting, but it probably covers 90% of them.
Ideally every meeting should be categorised in advance so that everyone’s going in with the same expectations.
If you find yourself trying to categorise a meeting and you think “Well, it’s mostly convergent, but there’s also this divergent aspect…” then you should probably have two separate shorter meetings instead.
And if you’re trying to categorise a meeting and you find yourself thinking, “This meeting is mostly so I can deliver information” …that meeting should be an email.
