Friday
Jul092010
The Conference Room Paradox
SteveIt’s 10:00 AM on a Tuesday and you are standing huddled in the hallway with six or seven of your colleagues all awkwardly clutching notepads, files, coffee (and not the take out cups with protective plastic lids, regular office type mugs with funny sayings like ‘Number 1 Boss’ or ‘Wake me up when it’s
flickr - faungg Friday’ on them), and maybe a laptop to take notes. Your standing weekly status/update/check-in/whatever meeting with the extended group is booked for 10, and the ‘big’ conference room, the only one relatively close to your cube farm that will comfortably fit everyone has been put on ‘reserve’ for this date and time for the next 179 weeks.
As usual there is another group meeting in the conference room before you, and once again their meeting has not broken up by their allotted ending time. So you do the right thing, you and your group give them a minute or two to wrap-up, no need to get all uppity about an odd few minutes.
It is now 10:03 and the conference room door is still closed, someone puts an ear up to the door and can hear some animated and excited (but muted from behind the closed door) conversations going on inside. Could be something innovative and exciting and important going on in there. Or it could be just another work team making casual small talk as their meeting winds up. Hard to say, but you decide it doesn’t matter anyway, it is now 10:04 and your time is now being wasted, so you give the token quick ‘double-knock’ as a split-second warning and immediately open the door and state (politely but firmly), ‘Hi - I believe we have the room at 10:00’.
The folks inside do the right thing, quickly gather up their assortment of belongings (remarkably similar to all the stuff your team is carrying), and beat a hasty retreat to the door, pairs of participants sharing final bits of information, giving directions, making plans, etc. You can’t help but hear most of what they are saying as your teams intermingle during the ‘file out/file in’ process. It does sound like they were working on some interesting ideas on the new product line you have heard some rumors about. Definitely way more interesting (and probably important) than another weekly meeting reviewing the same list of action items/tasks/statuses or whatever that you have to endure for the next 55 minutes.
But none of that really matters when availability of the ‘big’ conference room is at stake. It is kind of a mark of status and importance to have a standing claim to a few hours a week of time using that prized resource. Good thing when your assistant booked the room for you (for the next 179 weeks), the scheduling program didn’t ask you for a justification or an explanation of exactly how you manage to harness and direct insight, creativity, and innovation into exact one-hour increments on the same day every week.
You know you have all been there before. The big conference room paradox. Organizations drag everyone into a central location called ‘the office’, but then parcel out space in small increments of cubes and private offices, and there is hardly any space to actually interact and communicate and collaborate. The ‘big’ conference room becomes highly prized as a gathering place, and slots are tightly distributed by the hour, and snatched up without much thought to importance or value to the enterprise.
Dang, I just heard a knock, I can’t finish this post with an epic conclusion since my hour is up, I guess I’ll have to hold that thought until next Tuesday at 10:00, (or 10:04).
flickr - faungg Friday’ on them), and maybe a laptop to take notes. Your standing weekly status/update/check-in/whatever meeting with the extended group is booked for 10, and the ‘big’ conference room, the only one relatively close to your cube farm that will comfortably fit everyone has been put on ‘reserve’ for this date and time for the next 179 weeks. As usual there is another group meeting in the conference room before you, and once again their meeting has not broken up by their allotted ending time. So you do the right thing, you and your group give them a minute or two to wrap-up, no need to get all uppity about an odd few minutes.
It is now 10:03 and the conference room door is still closed, someone puts an ear up to the door and can hear some animated and excited (but muted from behind the closed door) conversations going on inside. Could be something innovative and exciting and important going on in there. Or it could be just another work team making casual small talk as their meeting winds up. Hard to say, but you decide it doesn’t matter anyway, it is now 10:04 and your time is now being wasted, so you give the token quick ‘double-knock’ as a split-second warning and immediately open the door and state (politely but firmly), ‘Hi - I believe we have the room at 10:00’.
The folks inside do the right thing, quickly gather up their assortment of belongings (remarkably similar to all the stuff your team is carrying), and beat a hasty retreat to the door, pairs of participants sharing final bits of information, giving directions, making plans, etc. You can’t help but hear most of what they are saying as your teams intermingle during the ‘file out/file in’ process. It does sound like they were working on some interesting ideas on the new product line you have heard some rumors about. Definitely way more interesting (and probably important) than another weekly meeting reviewing the same list of action items/tasks/statuses or whatever that you have to endure for the next 55 minutes.
But none of that really matters when availability of the ‘big’ conference room is at stake. It is kind of a mark of status and importance to have a standing claim to a few hours a week of time using that prized resource. Good thing when your assistant booked the room for you (for the next 179 weeks), the scheduling program didn’t ask you for a justification or an explanation of exactly how you manage to harness and direct insight, creativity, and innovation into exact one-hour increments on the same day every week.
You know you have all been there before. The big conference room paradox. Organizations drag everyone into a central location called ‘the office’, but then parcel out space in small increments of cubes and private offices, and there is hardly any space to actually interact and communicate and collaborate. The ‘big’ conference room becomes highly prized as a gathering place, and slots are tightly distributed by the hour, and snatched up without much thought to importance or value to the enterprise.
Dang, I just heard a knock, I can’t finish this post with an epic conclusion since my hour is up, I guess I’ll have to hold that thought until next Tuesday at 10:00, (or 10:04).
Reader Comments (3)
Dude this is great writing. I miss working with a bunch of people...................:-(
I could just see you chatting with all the folks in the break room and signing up to bring donuts in on Fridays - good times!
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