Meetingsο
Meetings can be called either on-demand or regularly. To avoid any miscommunication and facilitate syncing between meeting participants, it is recommended to follow the following guidelines.
Calling for meetingsο
- Define a goalEvery meeting needs to have a goal. The goal should be clear to give direction to the discussion.
- Define the agendaAll meetings must have an agenda. The agenda helps participants focus and keep the meeting within its time constraints. The agenda should at least contain:
The topic and subtopics to be discussed
Possible preparation required by participants to be able to attend
- Define participantsThe participants should be separated between:
Mandatory participants
Optional participants
- Define timeThe meeting should take place within a specific time-frame. The time-frame should be such that all mandatory participants can attend. Try not to exceed 1 h to avoid fatigue. Use free/busy information, if available, to minimizes chances of rescheduling. The meeting should be scheduled far enough into the future to let participants respond in time for their availability. Always add some extra time; meetings usually run overtime.
- Define locationThe location, either physical or virtual, should be defined.
- Set remindersParticipants should be reminded in some way when a meeting is starting soon.
- Make resources availableAny resources needed to execute the meeting (documents, pages, links, etc.) should be available to the participants either directly or as links.
Calendar invitationsο
The most common way to call for meetings is through calendar event invitations. The recommended mapping between meeting properties and calendar invitations is:
Invitation |
Meeting |
---|---|
Start time |
Start time |
End time |
End time |
Title |
Agenda topic |
Description |
Agenda |
Location |
Location |
Required attendees |
Mandatory participants |
Optional attendees |
Optional participants |
Reminders |
Reminders (for example 15β before start) |
Virtual meetingsο
Virtual meetings, preferably, take place on the Big Blue Button instance of Libre Space Foundation. The BBB service is integrated to Libre Space Foundation Cloud. Personal and shared meeting rooms can be managed through the BBB tab of the LSF Cloud. Access to created meeting rooms can be set to βPublicβ or βInternalβ, with various combinations for guest access (password, waiting room, etc.). When creating a new meeting room, set the appropriate access control settings, based on the privacy-sensitivity of the subject and the audience expected to be invited. To join meeting rooms set to be accessed internally, users are required to log-in using their LSF Cloud credentials. Avoid joining as a guest when you do have an LSF Cloud account and log-in instead so that your userβs avatar is properly displayed in the participants list. Always make sure that the audio setting are correct and the audio setup is functioning properly before joining a virtual meeting. A lot of frustration can be avoided by trying to briefly join with your devices (for example laptop, mobile phone) beforehand, to test that everything works and familiarize yourself with the platform. It is possible to join BBB virtual meetings using any modern web browser, including mobile web browsers; thus there is no need to install any specific mobile application.
Responding to invitationsο
Participants are expected to respond to invitation as soon as possible. Always check your calendar to avoid double booking and always account for possible time needed to prepare before responding to an invitation. It is acceptable for participants to completely deny attending or ask to reschedule a meeting. In any case, always reply with the reason.
Initiating meetingsο
To start a meeting, the following guidelines should be followed:
- Small talk for 5 minutes, if possibleThis helps people to start talking and also allows time for everybody to gather.
- Assign rolesThe following roles shall be assigned to people at the start of the meeting:
Leader - The person who leads the discussion; usually the person who called the meeting
Notekeeper - The person who keeps minutes of the meeting
Kanban master - If the meeting involves a Kanban board review, the person who goes over the Kanban cards (for example GitLab issues)
Timekeeper - The person who makes sure that the meeting runs on schedule
Participant - Anyone who is invited and attends the meeting
Participatingο
To make meetings more efficient, the following guidelines should be followed after meeting starts:
Always try to stick to the agenda and the meeting goal, as defined by the organizer
Come up with clear action items which can be later documented as tasks for people undertake
Avoid overrunning the scheduled meeting time; people may have scheduled other tasks after the meeting
Post-meeting actionsο
After the end of the meeting, the meeting notes should be published by the Notekeeper and all action items should be filed as tasks to the task track system (for example GitLab issues) by all participants assigned to them.
Regular LSF meetingsο
Morning get-togetherο
This meeting takes place every week from Tuesday to Friday, between 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM, Athens local time. It is open to any discussions and attendance is optional. No Leader is required. The meeting is also exempted from the rule to keep notes, thus a Notekeeper is not necessary. At Friday there is an all day gathering at HQ (HSGR).
Evaluationο
The meeting is currently running an experimental period. The parameters of the morning get-together meeting shall be evaluated between 23rd to 27th October, 2023.
Monday status and priorities Meetingο
This meeting provides status per project and sets the priorities for the week on an organization level. Participants are all the core members.
Before the meetingο
Before the Monday meeting, each Project Champion should provide the weekly update as a comment on each project issue. The meeting notes are placed in Project Tracking issue board under the Core repository.
Note
You can use a comment template on Gitlab that provides the needed sections for the update.
This meeting takes place every week at Monday, between 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM, Athens local time.
During the meetingο
This meeting is split in three parts.
In the first part, a quick update on leaves is given reading through the Leaves GitLab project.
In the second part, project champions report to the meeting leader the status of project. Leader of meeting and Kanban master is the Executive Director.
In the third part of meeting, each core member updates their individual dependencies with other people.
Note
The Dependency app is used for all core members to state their dependencies.
Ask for an invite during the meeting if you donβt have access.
During this process, individual priorities might shift, following the needs of the organization.
Evaluationο
The meeting is during an evaluation period. The parameters of the morning get-together meeting shall be evaluated between 15th to 19th January, 2025.