Joep Schuurkes (Posts about self-organization)https://smallsheds.garden/categories/self-organization.atom2023-11-26T10:50:54ZJoep SchuurkesNikolaMaking meetings workhttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/making-meetings-work/2023-05-30T09:31:25+02:002023-05-30T09:31:25+02:00Joep Schuurkes<figure><img src="https://smallsheds.garden/images/2023/making-meetings-work/venn-meeting.png"></figure> <div><p>Too often I've heard people say: <em>"Oh no, not another meeting!"</em> Usually this means they feel their time at work is split between time in meetings and time in which they do actual work. And to be fair, they have a point. I too have been in plenty of meetings that didn't achieve much of anything. It doesn't have to be this way, however. Meetings can be effective and they can leave you with a real sense of having accomplished something. And in this post I'll explain how to make that happen.</p>
<h2>We struggle with meetings</h2>
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<p style="margin-top:10px">We struggle with meetings. On the one hand we keep proposing them, scheduling them, attending them. On the other hand we keep complaining about them. We feel sorry for people with a day full of meetings. When a meeting ends early, we <em>"get 10 minutes of our lives back"</em>.</p>
<p>To that <a href="https://twitter.com/j19sch/status/1179798961131012096">I say</a>:</p>
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<p><em>If you feel you do all your work outside of meetings, you're meeting wrong.</em></p>
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<p>It's something I realized while I was a scrum master: my work happens during meetings. Mostly team meetings and 1-to-1s. There's prep before and follow-up after meetings, but I did the core of my job through meetings.</p>
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<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/making-meetings-work/">Read more…</a> (9 min remaining to read)</p></div>From tension to agreement with Sociocracy 3.0https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/2022-01-22T11:27:13+01:002022-01-22T11:27:13+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Earlier this month I started my new job at a small consultancy. During my onboarding I noticed something that I thought could be improved. So I figured I should come up with a proposal to address that. It also made me wonder how me proposing this improvement would go over with my new colleagues. And then I remembered I learned about a good way of doing this in a workshop<sup id="fnref:6"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/#fn:6">1</a></sup> at the 2016 <a href="https://xpdaysbenelux.nl/">XP Days Benelux</a> conference. That workshop was about <a href="https://sociocracy30.org/">Sociocracy 3.0</a> (S3 for short). So I ended up proposing two things in the meeting: my improvement, but also a way to come to an agreement about my proposal.</p>
<p>The reactions to my proposal about how to come to agreements, were mostly positive. One person asked a very good question though: <em>"Is this solving a problem we are having? Or is this a solution looking for a problem? What would be the reasons for adopting this?"</em> In response I expanded on my reasons for wanting this and we decided to give it a try. My dual proposal helped here: let's try the S3 patterns I shared on the improvement I proposed.</p>
<p>Looking back, I'm happy with my reply to those questions and I also feel I can do better. Which makes this the perfect opportunity for my first blog post of 2022. I'll start with a brief introduction on Sociocracy 3.0, then I'll share the proposal I made based on S3, and finally I'll talk about why I like this form of decision-making.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/">Read more…</a> (7 min remaining to read)</p></div>