Ellen Wallace
It’s obvious: people sit down for meetings. And then along come people who notice the obvious and think about it and suggest standup meetings. Martin Fowler and/or Jason Yip at Thoughtworks caught my eye with a post on the rights and wrongs of standup meetings, which it had never occurred to me is an option. The idea behind it is wonderful: if people stand up, the meeting will be shorter.
I came across this in an odd way, part of the joy of the Internet. I had googled "standing on hands too long" and came up with several links to Beatles’ lyrics ("I saw her standing there") and then the post from Thoughtworks. The only problem is that the post is too long so I started to glaze over just as I do in long meetings – and that is when I hit "Who attends? All hands" and then something about getting everyone moving in the right direction, so the image I’m left with is a little confusing but I can see why Google sent me here.
I still don’t know how long you can safely walk on your hands, at a meeting or elsewhere.
GenevaLunch, 3 June 2008.
Filed under: Arts, Business, Technology
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June 8th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Martin Fowler and Jason Yip weren’t the first on this. The Queen’s Privy Council, including the Queen, has been standing at its monthly meetings since the time of Queen Victoria.
The custom was initiated by Queen Victoria herself. All she needed to do ensure that the Council stood was to remain standing herself. Etiquette does not allow sitting while the Sovereign is standing. Keeps the meeting short and to the point.
In business this was also famously pioneered in the UK by Archie Norman, the CEO of Asda supermarkets.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I was pretty sure someone else had done it first, But Queen Victoria hadn’t occurred to me! As for ASDA employees, most of whom don’t get to sit down during the day (checkout people excepted), this seems a bit unfair! Wonder if they feel it is worth it.