Measure Often, Ask for Almost Nothing
Two instruments measure meetings, and they are not interchangeable. The audit asks whether a series deserves to live. The pulse asks how today’s session actually went — asked while chairs are still warm and opinions haven’t yet calcified into office mythology. This is the pulse: run after every meeting that matters, built to be answered in less time than it takes to refill the coffee.
The whole design bet is on brevity. A pulse that takes a minute gets answered; a pulse that takes five becomes the very meeting tax it was built to protest.
Six Taps, One Screen at a Time
No walls of fields, no scrolling. One item per screen, moved along by navigation arrows, with a slim progress bar proving how little remains:
- Worth the time? A 0–10 opinion scale — the headline number for the session.
- Clear owners? Did it end with named people and real deadlines — a strict yes/no.
- Right people? Anyone missing who was needed, or anyone present who wasn’t — also yes/no.
- On time, both ends? Started and finished within the slot — the politest possible way to catch chronic lateness.
- One change. Optional short text — a single suggestion, not an essay.
- For next time. Optional second text — anything that belongs on the next agenda.
Forty seconds, phone-native, done before the room empties.
Where the Pulse Lives
The link earns its keep by proximity: dropped into the calendar invite’s notes, pinned in the team channel right after the meeting ends, or carried as a standing shareable URL that never changes. Teams that bury the pulse in a weekly email digest get the response rates the burial deserves.
What Six Numbers Catch Over a Month
One pulse is an anecdote; thirty are a diagnosis. Watch the accrual: clear owners answering no three weeks running is decision theater, now documented. Right people sliding toward no is invite-list drift. On-time percentages sagging every Monday morning is a scheduling fact, finally visible. The response view filters by date, so the trend per meeting series reads itself.
For teams running distributed or async, the same pulse embeds in the internal wiki so nobody needs another tab opened on their behalf.
Frequently Asked Questions
Won't people tire of rating every meeting?
They tire of long surveys, not short ones — and voluntary, anonymous, forty-second pulses stabilize after the first two weeks. Drop the text prompts to optional-only if fatigue appears; the four taps carry the trend on their own.
Is this a replacement for retrospectives?
No — different jobs. A retro digs into the sprint quarterly, with depth and discussion. The pulse is a temperature reading per session. Teams that pulse well retro better, because the retro starts with data instead of recollection.
Who sees individual answers?
Nobody, by default. Results surface as aggregates and trends; the access rules get decided before the first pulse goes out, not after the first awkward score.
Can we pulse client meetings with the same form?
Use a separate, softened variant instead — clients shouldn’t be asked ‘worth your hour?’ in the language your standup uses. The mechanics carry over; the wording must not.