Written by: David Carneal – Digital Efficiency Consulting Group – DECG
Read Time: 3 min
If your “efficiency meeting” is only executives in a room, you’re basically running a book club about a book nobody read. The people closest to the work see the waste first: the duplicate entry, the missing fields, the handoffs that turn into inbox purgatory, and the “temporary workaround” that became permanent in 2019.
Digital efficiency improves fastest when the conversation includes the roles that touch the work end-to-end. Not because executives don’t care, but because distance from the work creates blind spots. And blind spots are expensive.
Who Belongs in the Room
Invite a mix that reflects the real workflow, not the org chart. A simple starter roster:
- Front-line doers (the people who touch the work)
- Customer service reps, coordinators, pickers/packers, technicians
- Anyone who regularly says “I have to do this twice”
- One upstream partner
- Who hands work into the process (sales, intake, dispatch, etc.)
- One downstream partner
- Who receives the output (billing, shipping, QA, the customer)
- A facilitator who can keep the conversation moving
- Keeps time, keeps it safe, keeps it focused
Ground Rules That Keep Ideas Alive
If people don’t feel safe, they won’t share the real issues. Use rules that protect the conversation:
- No instant “that will never work” reactions. Park concerns, don’t kill momentum.
- Separate ideas from implementation. First generate options, then evaluate.
- Focus on the work, not the person. “The step is broken” beats “you’re doing it wrong.”
- End with one decision: what small change gets tested next?
A 30-Minute Agenda That Works
- 5 min: Define the workflow you’re discussing (start, finish, and who’s involved).
- 10 min: List friction points (duplicates, waiting, errors, unclear ownership).
- 10 min: Pick one friction point and brainstorm fixes (quantity over perfection).
- 5 min: Decide the next experiment (owner, timeline, what you’ll measure).
Starter Questions That Create Signal
Use questions that surface friction fast. A few that work in almost any department:
- What takes the most time out of your day?
- If you could change one thing to make your job easier, what would it be?
- What do you find yourself thinking about while doing repetitive tasks?
- Where do mistakes usually start: at intake, handoff, or rework?
- What information do you wish you had earlier?
- What do you do when the system doesn’t have what you need?
What to Do With the Output
The meeting isn’t the product. The experiment is. Capture:
- The chosen friction point (one sentence).
- The test you’ll run (what changes).
- The owner (one accountable person).
- The measurement (time saved, errors reduced, handoffs removed).
- The review date (when you decide to keep or change course).
Common Meeting Traps (Avoid These)
- Turning the meeting into a complaint festival with no decision at the end.
- Letting the loudest voice become the “owner” by default.
- Jumping to tools before agreeing on the problem.
- Collecting ideas and never reporting back (the fastest way to kill participation).
If your team is hybrid or distributed, the same rules apply. Use a shared doc for friction points, time-box discussion, and always leave with one named owner and one measurable next step. Remote doesn’t break improvement. Ambiguity does.
You don’t need a marathon. You need a short, repeatable rhythm that builds trust and momentum.
CTA: Set a 30-minute monthly “Efficiency Huddle.” Same invite list, same ground rules, one goal: pick one small friction point and test one change before the next huddle.