Blogs

The roar of a silent meeting

Change the way you conduct some of your meetings

The monsoon was blaring. The team was coming on the back of an intense few weeks with work and an internal air challenge. They had exerted and extraverted. And we had just released our new company website. The goal was for our people to be connected with the message, clinical with feedback and caring about the effort poured in to build www.twimbit.com/about .

Sticky silence

So we tried. For the time. A silent meeting. Where all were clear about the why, what and how. We gathered, hopped on to the site, not all on camera, took a few observatory minutes and bam! Feedback and suggestions started pouring in on the chat. Covering every aspect of design, copy, UI and UX.  

It was a 30-minute meeting. A lot of people stayed 15 minutes over and continued to share. When I left about 20 minutes over 2 people were still there.

We then gathered all the feedback, took the necessary actions and responded back swiftly with updates.  

The rising sun sets fire to the lowest needles of the pines
That is adoption.

“The silent meeting is a great concept that we tried. I want to use it for our platform release”

Sumit Pandey

Technology Leader
Twimbit

“It’s a hit.”

Aryaman Seth

Research Analyst
Twimbit


Our use cases thus far: 6 weeks, 3 silent meetings, 1 team  

  • To review our new website release
  • To review the new Twimbit playbook 2.0
  • To review our new platform release www.twimbit.com

The 5-point structure of a silent meeting

  • Share agenda and resources in advance
  • Convert the critical points into FAQ’s and share with the team in advance
  • Start the meeting with reviewing points 1 and 2
  • Gather all feedback from the team and respond back with actions, status and next steps
  • Keep the meeting relaxed

4 benefits of a silent meeting

  • Manifest a singular combined focus of the team
  • No distractive conversations
  • No proving points
  • Introverts and extroverts both shine with their written opinions

3 challenges of a silent meeting

  • Anxious silence in the first few minutes during observation/reviewing the task
  • Cameras off might make you wonder ‘what’s going on’ in the initial moments
  • Easy getaway for some people

Some more use cases for a silent meeting

  • Specific ideation for a business objective  
  • Product reviews
  • Reflections for self-development