When participants follow the Six Ps, Board sessions, reviews, operations meetings, design and code walkthroughs, All Hands meetings, interviews, and literally every forum where people convene to discuss a topic, both their individual performance and performance of the group as a whole is greatly enhanced:

Prepare: Read materials sent in advance with enough lead-time to reflect on their content.  If you are the meeting owner, make it easy for attendees to prepare, and for you and your team to step-back and develop perspective, by distributing background materials at least two days ahead.

Show uP: Attend!  You cannot contribute if you do not attend both physically (even if electronically, e.g. by phone or Skype) and mentally.   Continue reading →