Jeff Bezos and his 2-Pizza Rule

According to the Stanford study

• Meetings with over 9 attendees are unproductive, as friction grows in proportion to the increase in participant numbers.
• However, in meetings with under 5 people, you run the risk of the participants falling into groupthink. This means people in a group tending to fall in with the majority view, despite actually having a different opinion or even being convinced that the wrong decision is being made.

• Members of over-sized groups tend to lose respect for the meetings. They prepare less in advance and start to take a more passive -even resigned – role.
• The bigger the group, the lower an individual‘s expectation that her involvement will be noticed.

This is the start of a downward spiral into extremely unproductive meetings.

 Think before you invite!

• Who actually needs to be there?
• Who would just be twiddling his thumbs?
• Who can provide a unique perspective?
• Who won’t offer anything new?

Define responsibilities-

• Tell those you’ve invited what you expect from them
• And they’ll be responsible for conveying the content of the meeting to those who haven’t participated.