Internet DRAFT - draft-nottingham-scheduling-online-meetings
draft-nottingham-scheduling-online-meetings
Network Working Group M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft 20 January 2022
Intended status: Best Current Practice
Expires: 24 July 2022
Scheduling Online Meetings
draft-nottingham-scheduling-online-meetings-01
Abstract
This document recommends best practices when scheduling online
meetings.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-scheduling-online-
meetings/.
information can be found at https://mnot.github.io/I-D/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/mnot/I-D/labels/scheduling-online-meetings.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Considerations When Scheduling Online Meetings . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Reasons for Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Meeting Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Scheduling Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Recommendations for Scheduling Online Meetings . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Gather Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Find the Best Solution (if possible) . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Find an Equitable Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3.1. Method I: Poll from the Least Privileged
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3.2. Method II: Equalize the Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3.3. Method III: Rotate the Pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4. Regularly Confirm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
The Internet has made it possible for people to meet synchronously
online, no matter where they are (so long as they have suitable
connectivity). Online meetings thus enable collaboration without
travel, empowering those who cannot attend an in-person meeting,
either because they do not have the means, or because external
circumstances (like a global pandemic) prevents it.
However, the ease with which an online meeting can be scheduled
belies the difficulties that can be encountered when attempting to
include a broad selection of people with different commitments,
timezones, and expectations. Successfully scheduling an online
meeting often requires a delicate balance between accommodating a
large set of constraints with the need to make progress.
This document recommends best practices when scheduling online
meetings. It does not address the many other issues encountered in
planning online and hybrid meetings.
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2. Considerations When Scheduling Online Meetings
When scheduling an online meeting, an organizer must consider a
number of different factors that can constrain their choices and
influence the outcome.
2.1. Reasons for Meeting
There are many reasons to hold an online meeting, and often the type
of meeting has an impact on scheduling.
For example, a meeting might be scheduled to make a specific
decision, and thus it's important that all stakeholders have equal
opportunity to participate in the discussion leading to it. Another
meeting (even of the same group) might be held to gather feedback or
update participants about the status of an effort, in which case
scheduling conflicts might be resolved by a combination of holding
multiple meetings and coordinated communication about the outcomes of
each.
Successful meeting scheduling will consider the nature of the
meeting. In particular, if the reasons for meeting do not require
everyone to attend and there are potential conflicts, multiple
meetings and/or alternative means of achieving the meeting's goals
should be considered.
2.2. Meeting Participants
Participants often have different motivations for attending a
meeting. Often, people attend a meeting to witness what occurs
without contributing, because they want to track the discussion and
any outcomes. Others may attend and only contribute if a proposal
that they object to is made. It is often only a fraction of the
participants who will make substantial contributions to the
discussion.
Scheduling is also influenced by the number of people who want to
participate. Finding a time that is acceptable to five or six
participants is noticeably easier than doing so for fifty or sixty,
both because of the larger number of permutations in the latter case,
and because a small number of participants is more likely to develop
a working ethic that allows cooperation.
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Another factor to consider is whether the set of potential
participants is known during scheduling. If a meeting purports to be
'open' -- that is, to allow broad participation from anyone --
participation from those not represented in scheduling discussions
needs to be considered, so that they are not systematically
disadvantaged.
Successful meeting scheduling will assure that those who are
reasonably considered to be necessary to the proceedings are able to
avoid conflicts. For example, those facilitating the meeting and
those presenting critical information are reasonably considered to be
necessary to a meeting. Likewise, presence of key stakeholders are
only slightly less necessary to a meeting's success.
However, those necessary parties should not have any elevated
privilege in terms of having their preferences accommodated. If a
meeting time is merely inconvenient to them, rather than a serious
conflict (see Section 2.3), that should not overcome others' need to
avoid serious conflicts.
2.3. Scheduling Conflicts
Finally, there are different kinds of scheduling conflicts. One
person might consider having to commute to an office or shift another
meeting or meal as inconvenient, whereas another might have a
commitment to collect a child from school or provide care to a family
member that is difficult (if not impossible) to change.
Likewise, there is a significant difference between the mild
annoyance of joining a meeting outside of business hours (for
example, at 6pm local time) and disrupting someone's circadian rhythm
-- potentially affecting more than one day of their life as they
readjust -- to join one at 3am.
Successful meeting scheduling will take the nature of conflicts into
account, heavily discounting participants' mere inconvenience and
prioritising those whose commitments or location make their need to
avoid conflicts greater and more legitimate.
In general, a one-time conflict is not a reason to change the time of
a regular meeting or a series of meetings.
3. Recommendations for Scheduling Online Meetings
Most online meetings have the potential for scheduling conflicts.
The steps below help implement the guidelines above, and are intended
to help schedule both single and recurring meetings.
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3.1. Gather Information
Ask group participants for:
1. The timezone that they are usually participating from.
2. If they have any genuine conflicts. For example, "I need to
collect my children from school at 4pm and no one else can do
it".
3. If they have preferences. For example, getting up early, staying
up late, avoiding family mealtimes.
"I have another meeting at 4pm on Tuesdays" is not a conflict, it is
a preference. This explicitly assumes that those who participate in
the meeting for work purposes should prioritise it; otherwise,
successfully scheduling the meeting is much less likely.
Conflicts and preferences should be gathered privately; e.g., in an
e-mail to the convener.
3.2. Find the Best Solution (if possible)
Based upon the information gathered, identify one or more candidate
times for the meeting that conform to these rules:
1. No participant is expected to attend any part of the meeting
between 11pm and 8am in their stated timezone, unless they
explicitly state a preference for doing so, and
2. No participant has a genuine conflict in any part of the
candidate time.
If no candidate times are available, proceed to one of the options in
the next step.
Otherwise, choose a candidate while conforming as much as possible to
any participants' stated preferences, announcing it for confirmation.
3.3. Find an Equitable Solution
If it isn't possible to find a time that meets all of the relevant
constraints, a compromise needs to be found. In doing so, the
considerations above can be incorporated by using one of the
following methods.
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3.3.1. Method I: Poll from the Least Privileged Perspective
A poll can be used to select a time for the meeting. In doing so, it
is important to consider the dynamics of group behaviour, because a
large number of people who have similar preferences are likely to
overwhelm the needs of a minority.
For example, if ten participants are all in the US/Pacific timezone,
three are in UK/London, and one is in Japan/Tokyo, a poll that has
many US-friendly options is likely to result in the meeting taking
place during business hours in the US, in the evening in London, and
at an extremely unfriendly hour in Tokyo, because the US participants
will not take others' inconvenience fully into account.
To counteract this tendency, such polls should only include options
that accommodate the needs of the least-represented participant. In
our example above, that might include options early in the morning
for the US, late in the evening for Tokyo, and in the afternoon for
London.
This option works best when participants are in somewhat compatible
timezones; if it is not possible to prevent a participant from being
inconvenienced by a truly unreasonable meeting time, the following
methods may be more appropriate.
3.3.2. Method II: Equalize the Pain
Alternatively, the information gathered can be used to calculate the
'least painful' time to hold the meeting, by assigning a 'pain value'
to each hour of the day. For example, a meeting during local
business hours has 0 pain, whereas a meeting at 3am has a very high
value (e.g., 5000). By calculating the cumulative pain for attendees
in each possible time slot, the time with the least collective pain
can be found.
See the online tool (https://bit.ly/meeting-pain-calculator) that
facilitates this. Note that it counts each timezone only once, no
matter how many participants are in that timezone, to counteract the
unfair weight that a large number of participants in one area can
have.
This option works best for meetings that are one-off, or in a short
series, and at least one participant will be truly inconvenienced by
an unreasonable time. If it is an ongoing series of meetings, it
might be combined with the next option.
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3.3.3. Method III: Rotate the Pain
When avoiding conflicts is impossible -- for example, because a truly
global pool of participants is needed -- it is more appropriate to
rotate through different meeting times that distribute the pain, so
that at least some meetings will be convenient for all participants,
and any inconvenience is shared.
For example, if a series of three successive meetings needed to
include participants from many parts of the world, the first might be
scheduled during business hours in North and South America, the
second during those hours in Europe and Africa, and the third during
business hours in Asia and Oceania.
Note that the relative number of participants from each region does
not affect the distribution of meetings. This is because the
resulting pain is not a shared experience -- it is an individual one,
and should not be proportional to participant distribution.
Furthermore, if a meeting needs to be perceived as globally
representative, it is important that the opportunity to participate
is equal.
The downside of this approach is that the meeting time changes,
potentially causing confusion and more disruption. As a result, it
should only be used for meetings that have significant amounts of
time between them (such as a month or more).
3.4. Regularly Confirm
If a meeting is regularly scheduled or part of an ongoing series, it
is important to regularly confirm the information of participants and
the selected time, because new participants may join (or wish to),
their information might change, and daylight savings time might
change the best choice (especially when participants come from the
Southern hemisphere).
4. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
Author's Address
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Mark Nottingham
Prahran
Australia
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: https://www.mnot.net/
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