h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ever been in a meeting where you can’t get a word in edgeways? Is the meeting being dominated by a few ill-mannered, opinionated people with loud voices? Maybe, like me, you’re naturally quiet and reflective: you can see what needs to be done, but there’s no way you can get your point across.

Well, this problem afflicted a particular IT project team working for the UK Government, and they hit upon an inventive solution: hand signals.

There are six signals which the team must use in their daily meetings:

I agree - both hands raised, palms outward
I disagree - hands raised, pointing downwards, palms inward
I want to talk - one hand raised, palm outward
I’m making a direct response - point index finger at the person you’re talking to
I need clarification - make a letter ‘C’ shape with one hand
I’m making a point of order - make an ‘O’ shape using both hands.

More details and pictures are on the team’s blog here:

http://gds.blog.gov.uk/2016/10/07/platform-as-a-service-team-takes-even-handed-approach-to-meetings/

The team claims the hand signals have made their meetings more efficient, and presumably a lot quieter, as anyone who’s ever had to work next to a daily stand-up meeting will appreciate.

But will it ever catch on?

>>where you can’t get a word in edgeways? Is the meeting being dominated by a few ill-mannered, opinionated people with loud voices? Maybe, like me, you’re naturally quiet and reflective: you can see what needs to be done, but there’s no way you can get your point across.<<


Welcome to the club.

>>But will it ever catch on?<<


Probably not. Those opinionated people will call it a "children's party game" or similar, and will carry on blustering in their ignorance.

Common sense will probably never prevail.

Meetings will always go on until the tea is cold. Things will be repeated; discussions will go round in circles; no one will change their opinion.

I''m done with meetings, but isn't there a chairman whose duty is...

Traditionally, yes. These days the trend (in IT at least) is for short, democratic stand-up meetings. They're time-boxed to 15 minutes, so you probably have to be a bit of a bully to get your point across.

But it's given me a business idea: adding those actions as buttons on video-conference apps (Google Hangouts, Skype, etc). As someone speaks, the other participants' hand-signals appear as on-screen graphics.

The core team and NPL regularly have text meetings on Skype (because seven party video eats too much bandwidth) and we use ! to request the word and * to signify that we're done. Works surprisingly well.