Collaboration_and_Meetings

From 1996–2003 I chaired various policy and technical groups at the W3C and IETF; I learned a lot about productive collaboration and meetings. (I even maintained a webpage about my collaborative style and what I learned from my first experience.)

Presently, I have much less opportunity to think about either of these things, except for the awfulness of most meetings I have to participate in.

Fortunately, there’s now lots of good books on how to have a productive meeting. I recommend a few and include links to my notes.

• Al Pittampalli’s (2007) Read This Before Our Next Meeting.
• Dale Hunter’s (1995) Meeting Design Guidelines.

I also have notes for an excellent book on how not to be taken advantage of in bureaucracies.

• Richard Buskirk’s (1989) Frontal Attack, Divide & Conquer, the Fait Accompli & 118 other Tactics Managers Must Know.