FreeTimeSchedules |
ReengineeringPatterns Wiki |
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| Status: For a laugh
Context: We want to meet but all have busy and conflicting schedules and are based on various different sites. Currently, agreement on time and place is reached by asynchronous dialogue. This leads to delays caused by people being unavailable to reply which, in turn, confuses the picture further since other commitments appear in the interim. Whilst a conference call would facilitate us reaching an agreement, we'd need a conference call to arrange that conference call ...... Problem: How can we arrange a meeting to suit all parties? Solution: When a meeting is due, we all publish our whereabouts and our free time over the next few days/weeks in some central repository. Appoint a facilitator to arbitrate and collate. If you update or edit your free time you tell the facilitator immediately. Consequences: By only publishing our free time, rather than our commitments, we avoid unnecessary clutter an retain some sense of privacy. If our whereabouts are given we can work out the logistics of people getting to a meeting on time (eg KB to HW or WRB to KB). A named facilitator means that someone has responsibility for making a decision based on the free time evidence. The amount of emails required to get agreement is substantially reduced which reduces the risk of confusion and email blindness. Unfortunately, the solution only works if people can find time to enter the data and keep it up to date. Fortunately, the free time only needs to be kept up to date for a short while until a place and time are fixed. Of course unforeseen priority engagements cannot be avoided. Known Uses: none. Related Patterns: Coffee & Biscuits.
Related pages: FreeTime |
| This page last edited on 5 November 1999 |