Does this meeting really need everyone in the office?
I ask myself this before I send an invite. Not because I dislike office days. Honestly, I love them and love to work with people.
But I've sat in a full meeting room where the only purpose was to share information. Everyone was there. Nobody really needed to be. That made me look at my own invitations differently.
Some of our colleagues don't live in Berlin. For them, an office day means the commute, the time, and less flexibility to plan their day. That's a real cost, and I'm the one asking them to pay it.
So before I invite people in, I check:
- Do we need to discuss, interact or build something together?
- Is this a 1:1 where being face-to-face really matters?
- Is the purpose connection or team building?
If not, a remote call, or sometimes just a written update, is enough. And people get their time back.
Choosing a meeting format looks like a small decision. But it sends a bigger message: I value your time.
Which meetings do you think are effective in-person? And which are enough as a remote call?
This is part of my "100 Days of Year One" series. Follow along as I share what I've learned in my first year as Head of Data and Cloud.