Meetings

Meeting Guidelines

1. Start and end meetings on time. We don’t wait for a quorum.

2. Every meeting includes an agenda. No agenda = no meeting.

3. Turning on your camera allows for more complete and intuitive verbal and non-verbal communication.

4. Record the live meeting and add the recording link to the meeting agenda.

5. Take notes in the agenda doc so those who cannot attend live can review at any time.

Scheduling meetings

All meetings are held on Zoom. Standard meeting lengths are 25 and 50 minutes.

Please enable speedy meetings to automate this process. Ensure Guest permissions are set to “Modify Event.” When scheduling, prioritize the availability of meeting attendees over optional guests.

Use Calendly to schedule meetings with external participants.

Formatting event titles

OCV uses standard titling formats for legibility and discoverability.

1. Always include the OCV company or external partner name and “OCV” in the title.

2. For recurring meetings, indicate frequency (examples: Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly).

3. Individual Office Hours are entered as OH: Company Name | OCV

4. Group Office Hours are entered as GOH: Company Name, Company Name, Company Name | OCV

5. Weekly meetings are entered as Weekly Sourcing: Name | Name | Name Weekly Recruiting: Name | Name | Name Weekly Content: Name | Name | Name Weekly Engineering: Name | Name | Name Weekly Ops: Name | Name | Name Weekly All-Hands Weekly Automation

6. Monthly Company Finance meetings are entered as Finance Vendor Name | Company Name Monthly Finance Review

7. For new company calls, set up in Calendly, entered as [Name] ([Project Name]) | OCV

8. For GP-led meetings: default to the PA team’s preference:

9. Example for Post-Seed GOH: OCV GOH: Company Name, Company Name, Company Name with GP Name (Monthly)

Rescheduling and canceling meetings

Meeting organizers should cancel or reschedule when there are no material updates to discuss or when key participants have scheduling conflicts. This practice ensures efficient use of everyone's time and maintains meeting productivity.

1. Weekly Functional Lead meetings: Cancel if the functional lead is unavailable or if both management members cannot attend. The meeting may proceed with at least one management member present.

2. For all other meetings: If someone has a scheduling conflict, either reschedule the meeting directly or message the group to find a preferred alternative time.

Agendas

We use agendas to document all meetings. Every meeting must have a standard-formatted agenda attached to the calendar invite. Agendas are prepared in advance and linked in the meeting invitation description as a full URL for maximum accessibility.

1. Public agendas are entered as Agenda: URL agenda link

2. OCV Internal notes are entered as OCV Internal Notes Only: URL notes link

Ensure all invitees can access the public agenda document and all internal attendees can access internal notes. Verify both the document's location and permission settings, as both factors determine access.

External meetings also require an agenda. This practice ensures a historical record of partner and vendor conversations for future reference. Let the external party know about OCV's meeting agenda policy and ensure they have access before the meeting. If the external party provides the calendar invite, request that they add the agenda to the invite.

By Date agenda format

By Date agendas are organized as notes per meeting, and have a persistent record that can be shared with other participants. These are well-suited to meetings that may benefit from asynchronous participation or where notes may be referenced by people who were not present for the conversation.

Rolling agenda format

A rolling agenda is formatted as a numbered list, with each number representing a topic to discuss. New items are added to the bottom of the document. The discussion works from the bottom and proceeds as far up the list as we can. Once an item requires no more discussion, it's removed from the list. If we don't make it to a topic in one conversation, it remains there for the next one, or until needed.

1. Labeling agenda items: Each agenda item is labeled with a date, owner, and purpose. Example: 2025-06-01 Erica DISCUSS: Disucssion topic details

2. Resolving action items: If a topic had previously been marked with DISCUSS, TODO, or DOTO, it should first be marked as DONE or MOVE, or WONT to communicate to the other person what its status is. This allows them to confirm that they agree that no further action is needed. Once discussed in the next agenda (or viewed asynchronously), the item can be removed. Only the person whose name precedes the item can remove it.

3. Removing agenda items: The person who added the item is the person responsible for removing the item from the list. If you added a topic and don't need to discuss it further, delete it. This is common for FYI or THANKS.

It's actively discouraged to use the rolling agenda for retaining notes of what's been discussed. Notes of anything important should be added to the handbook. This ensures that their context is available to others, and at the time they're ready to address the issue.

Agenda topic labels

It's recommended to prefix an agenda item with the name of the person who added it and a label indicating its purpose. Here are the labels and their meanings:

1. ISO_DATE ("2021-01-20"): Use when postponing a discussion topic until a particular date.

2. DISCUSS: Use for topics that need live discussion, explanation, or resolution.

3. FYI: Use to broadcast a message that you want to vocalize, but don't expect to need much time. Expected response is either a clarification question or "got it".

4. HELP: Use to solicit input on ways to approach a current problem. No need for resolution, and usually ends with "thanks for the input; I'll follow up shortly with a recommendation".

5. THANKS: Use to call out great work or appreciation.

6. TODO [Name]: Use to designate an action item and DRI.

7. DONE: Use to indicate a resolved TODO action ready to be cleared by the person who originated the topic. Also used for a decision that has been made that requires no further discussion or communication. (Use TODO for decisions that need to be communicated to another party.)

8. IN PROCESS: to indicate that action is underway.

Note-taking during meetings

1. Everyone has the agenda doc open.

2. Discussion flows linearly through the doc. Top down if organized "by date." Bottom up if organized as rolling.

3. Add your name to the agenda as a way to signal that you'd like to speak. This helps prevent talking over each other and overcomes the slight delay that is experienced with videoconferencing.

4. Each teammate adds their point or question in real time during the call. Always add your point below others' so that the linear flow is maintained.

5. Use numbers instead of bullets, so they are more easily referenced in conversation.

6. Each person's point should be its own bullet, so that you don't type on the same line as a teammate.

7. Where appropriate, links should be added for review and additional context in connection with associated bullet points (e.g., LinkedIn profiles, publications on public websites, internal projects with shared access).

8. For GitLab CEO Shadows: Please do not request agenda doc access. You can request the presenter to share during the meeting. There's no need to take notes for OCV meetings.

AI Notetakers

OCV uses Circleback (CB) to reduce the note-taking burden during meetings, improve the accuracy of meeting records, and build a usable, searchable archive of key information. Circleback captures decisions, action items, and important context after meetings, ensuring alignment and accountability without disrupting live conversation flow. To maintain operational transparency and keep reliable records, certain meetings are recorded, transcribed, and summarized into notes. Attendees should be aware that these records may be referenced later for business purposes—such as decision reviews, audits, operational alignment, or strategic planning. Please flag sensitive topics either before or during the meeting so they can be excluded from documentation. For any meetings that use Circleback transcription, add a notice in the Google Calendar invite description, alongside the agenda link, notifying attendees of transcription use:"This meeting will be recorded using Circleback. Notes and recordings may be used for future business purposes. Please flag any sensitive topics during the meeting if necessary."