meetings, meetings, meetings...sorry, my mute button was on

My second wish for 2021 (first one is obvious) is for a reduction in meetings. Even prior to the pandemic it was happening; there is a love of meetings and it has gotten out of control. I've been involved in many (many, many) work "flavor of the day" projects in trying to better reduce and manage meetings but all seem to end up in the trash after the facilitators see a shiny object, move on to another project and things move back to what they were with the loudest individuals getting their word in. 

The latest flavor of the day involves fancy terminology in the meeting titles like retrospective, checkpoint, refinement, stand-up, follow-up, sprint, agile, scrum, biweekly update, elaboration, and last but not least, 'planning'. I have spent up to six hours of the work day logged into video conference calls (audio only - no video for me thank you).

My two cents for fixing it. The meeting host needs to know what he/she is talking about and take charge of the meeting. Get a meeting facilitator like John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOLF_D7JVZM). Too much lollygagging leads to long calls and everyone starts multi-tasking/day dreaming after about 10 minutes of that. Keep it short and simple. Also, don't even think about a call after lunch. Get it done early and let everyone spend the remainder of the work day focused on the tasks at hand. Kind of like the old Hill Street Blues show where the head cop would address the troops on the matters of the day in the morning and leave them off with a, "be careful out there." No refinement, follow-up or retrospective needed.

I'd like to write more but have to get to a meeting...

Trail Head

Hollywood rider is back

My nephew Jackson got his regular chair back at the Fox 2 studios with another appearance yesterday; this time to support the 2021 Bike the Blizzard fundraiser (https://thehubofdetroit.org/biketheblizzard/). 

A great cause giving bicycles to kids who normally wouldn't have one. I donated two bicycles a few years back and hopefully two kids are out there enjoying the coast on them.

I haven't heard Jackson's totals yet but he can put some miles on and the weather has not been as bad as year's past (2019 for one; believe they called it early due to the excessive snow). I'll put an estimate at 300.

Pedal on Hollywood.

Trail Head

Creeping closer to Idiocracy - thankful for humor

I watched the Idiocracy movie over the holidays for about the 1,000th time and enjoy it each and every time. 

And yesterday I got to see the live version play out.

Thankful for humor during this time.

Trail Head