‘Parking lot’ is a project management technique used to keep a team meeting on track. It is a productivity technique to effectively deal with distracting, but important non-agenda items that arise during a workshop.
For $100,000, you could buy a home in many communities across the U.S. Or you can plop the money down for a parking spot in San Francisco. In addition to the possibility of using a Word or Google document as a "parking lot" for managing questions in your web-delivered demonstrations, another option is to use the Chat dialog in Zoom.
Meeting Parking Lot
A meeting parking lot helps keep track of important items that may not be useful to discuss in the current meeting. At the start of the session, explain the idea of the meeting parking lot to the meeting participants. Keep the meeting parking lot visible and reachable for all participants.
Income from operations is generated by parking lots. They can be built in areas where the construction of other types of real estate is limited. In developing the parking area plan, several important factors should be considered.
The purpose of your parking lot is identified in a six-step guide.
Zoom’s Privacy Measures
As mentioned, Zoom is taking the matter of privacy very seriously and isn’t afraid of putting its foot down to get the job done. This recent update notifies that it’s now mandatory for most meetings to either have a Passcode or a Waiting Room enabled.
Efficient Handling of Non-Agenda Items
Parking non-agenda items for later keeps the team focused. The parking lot captures important topics not directly related. Review the parking lot at the end of the meeting. Follow up on parked topics at appropriate times. Consider if different participants are needed.
Benefits include maintaining momentum and engaging the right experts. Tools like whiteboards help make parking lots visible to all.
Factors in developing parking area plans include available space and accessibility.
Integrating Parking Lot in Meetings
What’s most important is recognizing when one of these ideas arises so you can park and record it to revisit at a later date.
The follow-up can be at a meeting specifically to cover the parking lot or incorporated into related meetings. In determining the right way to follow-up consider whether different people need to participate. If the follow-up discussion does not involve all the people from the original meeting, make sure they are informed about the results of the follow-up.
Using a parking lot in meetings will help to keep your meeting on track when someone brings up a new unrelated topic.
Practical tips for hosting a parking lot meeting include selecting an accessible location convenient for participants.
An interesting take is to phrase parking lot items as "Great Idea, Different Meeting." This acknowledges the value while naturally leading to a discussion about the appropriate future meeting.