Meeting Legend
In order to introduce more structure to our agenda so as to make meetings more efficient with our time. I am open to changing this structure as we go and all feedback and alternative proposals for how to handle this are welcome.
Each section of the meeting will be annotated with one of the following five tags. If a sub-point specifies a different tag then this is an override. That is to say, tags describe everything beneath them in the agenda tree until another tag is reached.
All tags should be viewed as suggestions and not commandments. We still want to have a natural discussion but without these suggestions we have a history of going 1.5x over time to reach all points. The goal here is to make clear the agenda's intentions, even if we don't end up following these suggestions so as to save on time which was lost to discussions that would have been better had online and similar discussions which tend to go deeper or broader than intended.
#Status_Update - In this mode I (or someone else) will be bringing everyone up to speed on a given topic. Please save your questions/interruptions for tagged discussions or the end of the section. Reasonable interruptions (such as clarifying questions) are of course always welcome, but the purpose of this tag is simply to make clear that the intention of the tagged section of the agenda is to remain brief and generally speaking discussion branching from these sections should be had online, outside of the meeting (unless we all feel that it is a must-have discussion, again this is a suggestion not a commandment).
#Status_Update_Interrupt - In this mode I (or someone else) will be bringing everyone up to speed on a given topic, but in a setting where interruptions such as questions and discussions are expected and welcome. Discussions here should try to remain brief.
#Discussion - This tag explicitly opens the floor up for anyone to ask questions or make comments. Note that discussion tags are always optional and often times no one will have anything to say, this tag merely marks places were there is the potential for fruitful in-meeting discussions.
#Query([names]) - This tag explicitly opens the floor up for a specific person or group of people, generally to answer a question.
#Goal([statement]) - This tag marks the agenda's intention to have a discussion with a specific purpose to achieve. These discussions may take longer.