When I first settled into my new office, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that there was no easy way to reserve conference rooms in Outlook. I was accustomed to being able to open my calendar and easily pull in people and rooms to determine the right combination of time and place to hold a meeting. Instead, I was told that if I want to reserve a room I have to go through a person who is responsible for booking all of the conference rooms. This is crazy, I thought at the time.
But all of a sudden, I reflected on this "ridiculous complication"and realized that the "problem" may actually be a blessing in disguise. No conference room? Great! Let's avoid the abrupt interruption to people's days, the requirement to drop everything that people are doing just to get together and "talk it through" when a few emails (or Chatter, or Google docs with comments) would've worked as well if not better.
Part of the reflection came from a great video that a friend shared with me: Jason Fried's convincing explanation for why work doesn't happen at work.
I remember that at my previous organization there was constant talk about "too many meetings" and "meeting management" and "getting things done", but I felt that the organization was never able to change the cultural practice of calling meetings. In retrospect, perhaps the culture was enabled by the fact that it was so easy to get a room and setup a meeting in Outlook. Technology could have very well been the culprit, ironically hurting productivity in the organization instead of improving it.
So... No conference room? No problem! In fact, we may all be better off this way.
