That's ok unless the person doing the droning is Senior Management, they tend to take umbrage at such interventions. They are usually the worst culprits too.

My usual tactic is "Boss, would you mind if I stepped out at (the nearest quarter hour in the future) as I promised to take a call from (some important clients name)? It will only take 5 minutes, but I'd rather not cause him/her/them any offence.".

I've found this brings everyones focus back to the here'n'now and wraps the meeting up sharpish. It can even score you a few brownie points for diligence.

Of course, you can't use this very often.

That's ok unless the person doing the droning is Senior Management, they tend to take umbrage at such interventions. They are usually the worst culprits too.

This technique has worked on several of my bosses (VPs and a company President). You have be careful with the timing and delivery, but droning bosses can be stopped and redirected. You might need to extend the technique to call upon their desire to appear to be competent bosses.

"Boss, that sounds like an aweful situation you were in. We're lucky to have your experience in this meeting. As you sit here now, can you see bits of it that look like what we're facing? We could use the benefit of our experience."

That's laying it on a bit thick. Adjust according to your boss's personal style.

A better way to direct meetings than by sublte mind games and tricks is to use an agenda and ensure it is adhered to by restricting all off topic conversation until the end. Also ensure the meeting is chaired by someone as the chairs purpose is to direct the conversation from topic to topic

I tend to find the exact opposite and the meeting gets stuck in the future with everyone droning on about the cool things we could be doing or might do if we had the time, money, staff, or skill. This causes current issues to not be discussed and tends to happen with visionary managers. I will admit these utopian rants are usually caused be some reflection on what we could have done better in the past, but meetings are often about the future so focusing on the present is unlikely to help.

Obviously some people just like to talk and diplomacy is needed with senoir management so your 'interrupt phrases' may be useful then. People who like to talk however do not like being interuppted and you should be aware you might give the impression on being a bad listener with abrupt IT centric communication skills.

You can always take a laptop to the meetings and Perl away regardless:)

()-()
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But sometimes you don't need to be around for the entire meeting, in which case it may be possible to finish up with whatever point is being discussed and see if you can get your part of the meeting done next because (insert suitable excuse for leaving here). It helps if you've talked to the chairperson first to arrange that. It won't help if you're the chair and you have to stick around for the whole meeting -- but then if you're the chair and the meeting's dragging, then :) look in the mirror.

Suitable excuses:

• Expecting colleague/client to call (see earlier post)
• Working on a tight deadline and every hour helps
• Have to prepare for another meeting
• Need to reach a colleague/client who will be leaving shortly

Helped by "I'd love to get the minutes if someone could forward me a copy".

--t. alex
but my friends call me T.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl 

open( SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t" )
  or die "sendmail didn't open: $!\n";
print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
From: sdavis\@mydomain.com
To: <myphonenumber>\@voicestream.net
Subject: alarm clock
Try to look sufficiently panicked!!

EOF
close(SENDMAIL) or warn "sendmail didn't close";
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~monk d4vis
#!/usr/bin/fnord