David Strom reports on data that suggests that company meetings are taking up enormous amounts of business time that could otherwise be focused on getting things done.
Remote working seems to explain part of the phenomenon, and tools like Slack and Teams also seems to encourage more meetings and less work. How much more time are we talking about? Strom reports on a survey of Microsoft Teams users, who reported a 252% increase in weekly meeting time, and a 153% increase in the number of meetings.
Here at WideOpen Networks and Design Nine, I have a pretty strict rule that no meeting is scheduled for than one hour. I've found, over the years, that the longer the meeting, the more off-topic discussion and discussion meandering takes place.