Audit the sync load
Count recurring meetings, quick calls and decisions that waited for a meeting, and score the team’s sync load from 1 to 5. Meetings that interrupt the work people need to get done tend to go with more fatigue.
Velocity EngineExecution Game
Asynchronous Work
from let’s get on a call→to default to writing
The Goal
Move the work that doesn’t need a meeting into writing, so meetings are kept for what really needs them.
Ideal For
Distributed and hybrid teams with time-zone gaps, scaling teams where senior people have become the bottleneck, and any team whose calendar runs the day.
The Shift
From let’s get on a call to default to writing.
The Science
Switching between tasks tends to cost time and accuracy, and meetings that interrupt the work people need to get done tend to go with more fatigue. People generating ideas on their own tend to produce more than groups brainstorming aloud, and groups tend to discuss what everyone already knows, so writing first surfaces more. Ambiguous or contested topics still tend to need a live conversation.
Asynchronous Work, step by step
- Audit the sync loadCount this week’s recurring meetings, quick calls and decisions that waited for a meeting. Score the team’s sync load from 1 (mostly async) to 5 (sync is the operating system).
- Name the meeting no one would defendNot the worst meeting; the most quietly tolerated one. That is the first candidate to convert.
- Convert it in pairsWrite down how the meeting runs today, the written pattern that replaces it and who owns it. A status meeting becomes a written update; a decision becomes a doc with a named owner and a 24-hour window.
- Write the first messageDraft the note announcing the change before you leave, and set the day it goes out.
- Keep what needs syncAgree which meetings stay live, and why: ambiguity, conflict, connection, a real crisis or a kickoff that needs shared understanding.
- Install one default for 14 daysAsync First, Communication Windows or a Meeting Filter, written as an if-then: “When a new meeting request arrives, I will ask ‘why not a doc?’ first.” Review at day 14: what meeting did we not have, and what did we do with the hour?
The techniques, and why they work
Convert one meeting
In pairs, turn one quietly tolerated meeting into a written pattern with a named owner, and write the first message before leaving. People alone tend to generate more ideas, and writing first surfaces what only one person knows.
Install one default, and keep what needs sync
Pick Async First, Communication Windows or a Meeting Filter for a 14-day trial, written as an if-then, and agree which meetings stay live for ambiguity, conflict, connection, a real crisis and kickoffs. Ambiguous topics tend to need a richer channel.
Selected research
- Rogelberg, S. G., Leach, D. J., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2006). “Not another meeting!” Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 83–96.
- Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57–81.
- Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12(1), 3–23.
- Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467–1478.
- Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554–571.
Also runs as a half day · P3.7 HD
Asynchronous Work – Half Day
Half day (3 h 30 min), “Write first, meet less”: this lab in the morning, P3.5 Designing the 15-Minute Standup in the afternoon, with an optional 20-minute handoff block from P3.8 and a 30-day review.
from we meet because that’s how we work→to write first; meet for what needs it
The Goal
Move what doesn’t need a meeting into writing, redesign the meeting that stays, and leave with one charter for how the team communicates.
Ideal For
Distributed, hybrid and cross-functional teams whose calendar runs the day and whose standup has drifted into status, and teams setting a new meeting rhythm after a reorg or a move to remote work.
The Science
Meetings that interrupt the work people need to get done tend to go with more fatigue, and groups tend to discuss what everyone already knows, so writing first surfaces more. Ambiguous or contested topics still tend to need a live conversation. Stand-up meetings tend to be shorter than sit-down ones with similar decision quality, meetings with more solution-focused talk are associated with more productive teams, and people tend to raise real problems when they believe it’s safe to.
The techniques, and why they work
Audit and convert, in writing
Every recurring meeting marked keep live or convert; status moves into a written update; each conversion gets an owner and a first message. Meetings that interrupt the work tend to go with more fatigue, and writing first surfaces what only one person knows.
Redesign the meeting that stays
The standup reads the update first, then a theme, Outcome, Blocker, Alignment and one closing, in fifteen minutes. Stand-up meetings tend to be shorter with similar decision quality, and solution-focused talk goes with more productive teams.
Write the charter
One default, response windows across time zones, the meetings kept for ambiguity, conflict and connection, and the standup rules. Agreed quiet blocks tended to raise productivity in a field study, and ambiguous topics still tend to need a live conversation.
Selected research
- Rogelberg, S. G., Leach, D. J., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2006). “Not another meeting!” Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 83–96.
- Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57–81.
- Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467–1478.
- Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554–571.
- Bluedorn, A. C., Turban, D. B., & Love, M. S. (1999). The effects of stand-up and sit-down meeting formats on meeting outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(2), 277–285.
- Kauffeld, S., & Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2012). Meetings matter: Effects of team meetings on team and organizational success. Small Group Research, 43(2), 130–158.
- Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: