CST 499 - Week 1

This week was the official start of CST 499 and our group's capstone project. I'm working on an AAG application along with Abby Packham and Sebastian (Juan) Delgado, and our project is off to a good start.

For this week's reading, I read an article on how to conduct effective meetings. As a full-time software test engineer, I attend daily scrum meetings about thirty minutes long and have attended many types of work meetings, both long, short, formal, and informal, in the almost three years I've been at my current job.

The most common pitfall I witness in meetings is getting sidetracked and losing precious meeting time, or conducting meetings that weren't necessary. I find this tends to happen less at work during large meetings that feel more like announcements or seminars and more often with groups of two to twenty people. However, in my career as a student, this has happened in meetings all the time.

Although the majority of meetings I've attended at work follow the general tips laid out in the article, I think these are these are the most important tips from the article:

• Decide if a meeting is necessary.
• Create an agenda and follow it closely.
• Proper participation - in the daily scrum meetings I attend, everyone has a few minutes to state what they're working on that day, what they will work on the next day, and any issues blocking their work.
• Following up on action items after the meeting.

Personally, I don't think meeting minutes are always useful because they are either forgotten about, or glanced at and then buried somewhere in your inbox.

With the current world situation, I also think it's important to speak in turn and not interrupt anyone intentionally during phone/video/VoiP meetings.