What are the rules Amazon uses to boost the efficiency of internal meetings?



Many people have experienced that meetings prepared over time did not produce much results, but the question is, 'How can we hold a meeting that produces results?' Justin Garrison , a senior developer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) , explains 'Document sharing rules and benefits adopted at Amazon's internal meetings' that may help solve such a difficult problem.

The Document Culture of Amazon
https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/2021-03-15-the-document-culture-of-amazon/

According to Garrison, documents on the agenda will always be distributed at Amazon's internal meetings. The content and length of this document depends on the purpose of the meeting, and there are also dedicated tools for creating the document. In addition, Amazon requires the submission of documents to hold internal meetings, and if the documents are not submitted, the meeting schedule may be canceled.

Garrison argues that what's important in Amazon's document culture is not the content of the document, but '10-30 minutes of time to read the document at the beginning of the meeting.' According to this rule, meeting participants will be able to engage in discussions with the ambiguity on the agenda resolved. Garrison says that the meeting time is reserved by taking into account the time to read the document, so there is no such thing as 'I was running out of time because I was reading the document'.



The company Garrison belonged to before working at Amazon had a culture of documenting, but he didn't have time to read the document during the meeting, saying, 'No one is reading the document. You need to explain everything at the meeting. '' People who read the document read it a few days or hours before the meeting, so they forget the content at the meeting. '' You can understand by reading the document. There was a problem such as 'I get a question about the content'. On the other hand, Amazon, which has time to read the document, does not have these problems.

In addition, because the time to read the document is incorporated in the meeting, 'Since the presenter does not have to read the contents of the document aloud, the handicap regarding voices such as stuttering and deafness can be reduced.' 'Participation in the meeting It is not necessary for each person to secure time to read the document. '' If you attend the meeting 10 to 20 minutes late, there is no problem if you read the document in advance. ' thing. In addition, Garrison, who attends the meeting remotely from home, said, '10 to 20 minutes to read the document is the best time to exercise,' he said, doing simple exercise while reading the document. Is revealed.




In addition to the above merits, by holding meetings based on documents, even organizations such as Amazon where team members are scattered in areas with different time differences can hold meetings while sharing information without problems. There is also the advantage that it is possible. Garrison also said, 'If the opinions and questions raised during the meeting are not recorded in the document, there is a drawback that it limits the possibility of remote work', but from the above advantages, ' Document-based meetings are also great for migrating to remote work. '

Document-based meetings create a huge amount of documentation. Mr. Garrison says that he is preparing an environment that can handle a huge amount of documents using the document organization and search tool ' Command E'. However, Garrison said, 'Currently, I participate in 53 Slack workspaces. In such a difficult document search environment, it is difficult to manage the huge amount of documents created at each meeting. It will be. ”He points out that Amazon's document culture does not apply to every organization.

Garrison pointed out the above shortcomings and said, 'I am convinced of the usefulness of Amazon's document culture,' and will continue to optimize the document creation method to improve the efficiency of meetings. He says.

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