4 ms·

These days this exists just for frat boys. They love it.

Ancapistani 3y ago
FFA uses it for their meetings, and even have parliamentary procedure competitions. Weirdly, I've found it to be a lot more useful as an adult than I'd have guessed. It's rare to actually need to know how to run a formal business meeting, but the time I spent back then learning about the procedures, their history, and why the rules were structured in the way they are has paid off. I've had several situations where a meeting at work had devolved into a very low-level discussion of just one of the things that we needed to address. If that goes on too long, I typically interrupt and suggest that the people involved in the discussion set up a time to get together later, hash out the details, then come back with the results at our next meeting. The key is to then explicitly designate one person to be responsible for organizing that and reporting back. I've had great success with that approach, and while I've never used the term "committee"... that's exactly what it is. Setting an agenda for a meeting ahead of time is super helpful. Taking notes to share is too. If you do that, bring those notes to the next meeting and as people start arriving read them back and ask if you missed anything. Soon people will start expecting that, and your meetings will be much more focused and productive. Congratulations - you're now the de facto secretary of your group, and each time you meet you're reading back the minutes of the previous meeting. Your meetings end up starting on time, you spend less time with pleasantries and such every time as people arrive late, and people actually know WTF is going on as soon as you start. IMO, there is a lot to learn from the structured ways we did things in the past. They were set up that way for a reason. We may not call it the same thing these days or have a rule book sitting next to us for every meeting... but that doesn't mean there's no value to learning about the "old ways" and implementing the parts that make sense.
codingdave 3y ago
You should attend some school board or city council meetings to see how widespread its usage really is.
squirrel6 3y ago
Other have mentioned Rusty’s rules; in either case (Robert or Rusty’s version) the basic mechanics of parliamentary procedure are a useful framework. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a single organization where more than a few rules or basic principles are in active use in regular proceedings.
aidenn0 3y ago
At one point the HOA I was in had to hire a parliamentarian for the meetings because things had gotten so contentious.

FFA uses it for their meetings, and even have parliamentary procedure competitions. Weirdly, I've found it to be a lot more useful as an adult than I'd have guessed. It's rare to actually need to know how to run a formal business meeting, but the time I spent back then learning about the procedures, their history, and why the rules were structured in the way they are has paid off. I've had several situations where a meeting at work had devolved into a very low-level discussion of just one of the things that we needed to address. If that goes on too long, I typically interrupt and suggest that the people involved in the discussion set up a time to get together later, hash out the details, then come back with the results at our next meeting. The key is to then explicitly designate one person to be responsible for organizing that and reporting back. I've had great success with that approach, and while I've never used the term "committee"... that's exactly what it is. Setting an agenda for a meeting ahead of time is super helpful. Taking notes to share is too. If you do that, bring those notes to the next meeting and as people start arriving read them back and ask if you missed anything. Soon people will start expecting that, and your meetings will be much more focused and productive. Congratulations - you're now the de facto secretary of your group, and each time you meet you're reading back the minutes of the previous meeting. Your meetings end up starting on time, you spend less time with pleasantries and such every time as people arrive late, and people actually know WTF is going on as soon as you start. IMO, there is a lot to learn from the structured ways we did things in the past. They were set up that way for a reason. We may not call it the same thing these days or have a rule book sitting next to us for every meeting... but that doesn't mean there's no value to learning about the "old ways" and implementing the parts that make sense.

codingdave 3y ago

You should attend some school board or city council meetings to see how widespread its usage really is.

squirrel6 3y ago

Other have mentioned Rusty’s rules; in either case (Robert or Rusty’s version) the basic mechanics of parliamentary procedure are a useful framework. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a single organization where more than a few rules or basic principles are in active use in regular proceedings.

aidenn0 3y ago

At one point the HOA I was in had to hire a parliamentarian for the meetings because things had gotten so contentious.