# Death by Meeting

Like other Patrick Lencioni books Death by Meeting is very enjoyable and easy to read. The book is targeted at making your meetings more effective rather than abolishing them altogether.

Meeting Requirements

Death by Meeting clearly illustrates the necessity of Conflict and Contextual Structure for effective meetings.

Conflict: Meeting leaders should mine for conflict out of the participants. They should remember attendees that conflict is good and expected. Conflicts not addressed in meetings can easily become politics.

Contextual Structure: Some meetings should be focused on solving an immediate problem while others should be purely brainstorming. Do not mix meeting structures.

Suggested Meetings

Near the end of the book the author describes the four types of meetings companies should have.

• Daily CheckIn: Five minutes standing up. Report current activities.
• Weekly Tactical: 45 to 90 minutes. 60 seconds per participant to provide context. 5 minutes of progress review based on key business metrics. Realtime agenda derived from the progress review. Limited to address short term topics.
• Monthly Strategic: Deep dive into one or two topics that will impact the business. Two hours per topic. Can be scheduled ad-hoc too for critical issues. Require proper preparation.
• Quarterly Offsite Review: Analyze the business in a more complete manner. One or two days. Team and strategy review. Competitors and industry reviews. Aim to improve team unity.

Summary

Straight to the point book. Mandatory read for meeting organizers and participants.