Three kinds of meetings (part 2)
Really I just wanted an excuse for more cat school pictures
Last week we talked about two kind of meetings it’s important to understand fully and know how to lead: the standard team meeting and the focused discussion. This week we’re talking about the third major kind of meeting that’s important in support teams: ticket review. Let’s dive in.
Ticket crash
Also known as a ticket review meeting, the ticket crash is when the team puts its collective heads together to share tips and tricks, solve tricky issues, and generally brainstorm their way out of whatever problems are currently facing individuals on the team. The team comes prepared to discuss issues they’re currently facing, interesting things they’ve learned, and questions that they hope someone else on the team can answer for them. Unlike team meetings, but like focused discussions, your role is more as moderator than leader. Here’s how I’ve run them in the past:
Prepare the ground. Especially important before the first time you run one of these meetings, make sure folks know what’s going to happen ahead of time. Make sure people are coming prepared with thorny support issues they’re wrestling with, cool stuff they’ve learned, and any burning questions they may have about the product or any related products they’re working with. If nobody has anything to talk about, it’ll be a short meeting. And while that’s fine from time to time, if you get crickets week after week it’s time to restate those expectations.
Hold them regularly. This is the kind of meeting that gets more effective as time goes by. People discover that they can get help, so they ask more questions. Cultivate it well (see following bullet points) and it will become a virtuous cycle.
Stay quiet. This meeting isn’t about you. A ground rule should be that you, and other members of support leadership in attendance, should say as little as possible, particularly around answering questions. You probably know the answers, but if you jump in to respond to every question, that will squelch everyone else’s willingness to help. Make sure everyone stays engaged by keeping yourself disengaged.
Stay loose. The only agenda for this meeting is ‘bring questions, receive answers, or at least somewhere to start’. Stick to that brief by ruthlessly cutting off debates, monologues, or other attempts to monopolize the air. Otherwise, if a question is being asked, discussed, or answered, anything goes. Don’t interrupt unless you perceive things are getting heated or moving in circles.
Keep things moving. On that note, the key to a good ticket crash is to keep things snappy. Don’t let people endlessly talk in circles about Linux distro preferences, the benefits of Mac Gatekeeper over Windows Defender, or whatever. Contrariwise, if a discussion peters out, a quick ‘okay, who else has questions?’ will help keep things moving.
Keep things collegial. If nobody has suggestions, put in your own. Don’t put anyone on the spot—even if you know that Jane has expertise in the topic Jim is asking about, don’t ask her to weigh in. If she doesn’t, she probably has reasons for it and wouldn’t appreciate you shoving her forward. If recriminations start bubbling up, or pointed questions about ‘why didn’t you think about X, it’s obvious’, cut that off at the knees before it has a chance to grow. Make a point of talking to the offending party privately, because toxic behavior like this is antithetical to the collaborative atmosphere meetings like this rely on.
Take notes. Since you’re not spending your time talking, you have time to take notes. Make them detailed, make them comprehensive, and make them publicly available. Like team meeting notes, these will be a great resource for months and years to come as people can go back to old discussions to find solutions they may have forgotten.
As I mentioned just above, your role in this meeting is not to preside over it, to hold forth, or to share your knowledge. It’s to let everyone else on the team shine, collaborate on solutions, and generally build relationships with each other. Intervene as little as possible to keep things on track and productive, and you’ll find your team naturally taking the lead and running these meetings almost on their own.
One thing all the meetings have in common
While team meetings, focused discussions, and ticket reviews are very different beasts, there is one thing that they share with each other and with all other kinds of successful meetings: brevity. In that spirit, I’ll be brief: when there’s nothing to talk about, end the meeting. It doesn’t matter if it’s five minutes in or at the very outset, if there’s nothing to convey, then don’t waste anyone’s time. Give the time back to everyone and go have a glass of water. Hydration is important.
Summary
Because I love tables, here’s the tl;dr of the last two posts as a table. Clip ’n’ save!
Guess what! Substack doesn’t provide tables. 🤦🏻♂️ Here it is, reformatted as bullets. Pretend it’s a table!
(update in 2024: I've migrated to Buttondown but I'm not going to reformat this again. Sorry!)
Team meeting
Frequency: weekly or semi-weekly
Leader’s role:
Convey information
Answer (limited) questions
Provide clarity
Take notes
Keep in mind:
Set agenda and solicit topics ahead of time
Spin off deeper conversations into separate meetings or 1:1s
Keep a schedule
Focused discussion
Frequency: ad hoc
Leader’s role:
Share detailed information
Moderate discussion
Make a decision
Gain consensus
Keep in mind:
Answer all questions
Listen to varying opinions
Debate welcomed
Make a decision and be able to defend it
Ticket crash
Frequency: weekly or twice weekly
Leader’s role:
Light-touch moderation
Keep it moving, keep it friendly
Be quiet
Take notes
Keep in mind:
Stay out of it
Encourage but don’t require participation
It only works when everyone buys in
Take notes (repeating because it’s critical)
Thanks for reading Andy's Support Notes 💻💥📝!