Many teams use the concept of a parking lot during workshops and lengthy meetings as a technique for dealing with distracting topics or non-agenda items. Parking lots can be extremely helpful, but also quickly become a graveyard of questions you don’t want to deal with.

Definition: A parking lot is a place to capture comments, topics, or questions that are not related to the agenda. It keeps the focus on the immediate discussion while deferring (i.e., “parking”) other topics for later.

Illustration of a Parking Lot (An easel-size sticky note with smaller sticky notes on top.)
A parking lot captures discussion topics not related to the agenda.

Think of an actual parking lot — the cars are the topics or non-agenda items that come up during the meeting and the lot is where you keep these items until you’re able to tackle them.

Physical or Digital Format

Parking lot fidelity, medium, and detail vary. Items are generally captured in one of two ways:

Physically, on the wall. This method uses a large, easel-size sticky note or whiteboard as the parking lot. As non-agenda items come up, they are added on smaller sticky notes, either by the facilitator or by the person who generated that item. As the meeting progresses, items can be clustered (using, for example, affinity diagramming), based on their similarities. This format works best in workshops, where participants can generate the items and add them to the parking lot during activities or breaks.

Digitally, in meeting notes. This method uses a collaborative digital tool (for example, Google Docs) to capture parking-lot items in a bulleted list. Ideally, this document should be collaborative and accessible by all participants, not just by the meeting leader or scrum master.

Regardless of the format chosen, a parking lot should be collaborative and cocreated. It should be a group artifact: all meeting participants should understand how the parking lot works and why a given item belongs there. Its collaborative nature ensures buy-in and accountability to those next steps that are derived from parking lot items. It also prevents the parking lot from becoming a graveyard of unwanted discussions.

Benefits of a Parking Lot

Parking lots works especially well with:

  • participants who are prone to stray from the topic at hand
  • topics that are abstract and complex in nature, thus likely to have scope creep

A parking lot, when used effectively:

Keeps conversation on topic. For example, if we are discussing user needs and a colleague keeps mentioning a way to address it, we would put that idea in the parking lot so we don’t lose it, but we would keep the conversation focused on needs, rather than solutions.

Captures questions or assumptions for future research. During a workshop, you can keep a parking lot for questions or assumptions made about research. The parking lot could then inform a new research plan as workshop followup, but not halt progress during the workshop itself. Similarly, the parking lot can avoid “rabbit holing” by deferring overly detailed discussion of an otherwise relevant issue that threatens to overwhelm the bigger picture.

Outlines action items for followup. A parking lot created during a meeting or workshop can act as an outline for next steps. As they are added to the parking lot, topics can be immediately designated as action items with an owner and a timeline. This approach decreases the amount of time needed during meeting or workshop wrapup, as future to-dos are already captured and assigned.

Drawbacks of a Parking Lot

Parking lots can do more harm than good if not used correctly:

Dismissive in nature. First, they can be a big insult to a fellow colleague who presents an idea, only to have it put in the parking lot and never returned to. I’ve been there myself: when a colleague says “Okay, I’m going to put that in the parking lot and let’s move on,” you may feel that your colleague doesn’t care about your contribution. Such a response could ruin team dynamic and decrease overall participation.

Lack of consensus around next steps. Another common pitfall of parking lots is never deriving a clear action plan from the items contributed. Parking lots should offer outlines for future discussion, research, or meetings. If they are not informing future action, then they only become a way to kindly tell someone that their contribution is worthless.

Parking-Lot Recommendations

To combat these drawbacks, use these 5 best practices:

1. Allot dedicated time, ahead of the meeting, to tackle the parking lot.

If something is put in the parking lot, participants will know that there is already dedicated time to discuss it. The parking lot time can be the last 20–30 minutes of a meeting (for example, schedule the meeting to be 1.5 hours, instead of the original 1 hour) or a separate followup parking lot meeting 1-2 days after the original meeting. This approach negates friction that can surface when the author of an idea feels it is pertinent and discussion-worthy.

2. Introduce clear parking lot purpose and rules.

Even if colleagues know what a parking lot is, briefly introduce the concept, ground rules, and purpose. Doing so sets expectations, creates a shared language, and primes participants to use the parking lot correctly. For example:

“We are going to use the concept of a parking lot today. This is so we can accomplish our goal in the time allotted, but not lose other ideas, questions, or related topics if they naturally come up.”

As off-topic items are brought up, swiftly identify them verbally, as beyond the scope of the meeting. For items that are in the grey area, time-box the conversation: if the discussion continues past an allotted time, move it to the parking lot and ask the key contributors to finish the conversation after the meeting.

3. Organize the parking lot as you go.

As items are added to the parking lot, use affinity diagramming to cluster similar items (for example, group all items that are development-centric, and group all items that are design-centric). This approach helps organize, then potentially address items quickly and efficiently at the end of the meeting, by topic, if time permits. If time runs out, each cluster can be assigned as a to-do to the correct audience subgroup — with each subgroup having to follow up on their assigned cluster and email next steps to the larger group.

Example of a clustered parking lot
Affinity diagramming can be used to group similar items in a parking lot.

4. Assign owners and timelines.

For each item in the parking lot, assign a specific to-do and a timeline. For example, if the parking lot item is the research question “What about input from others in the household?”, you want to decide 1) how that question will be answered and 2) who will be responsible for doing it. Think “W.W.W.”: who does what, when.

Example of todo post-its attached directly to the parking lot item.
To-dos, action items, and owners can be written on sticky notes and attached directly to the original item in the parking lot. Doing so provides an outline for the next steps; the outline can be digitized and sent out with the meeting minutes.

 

5. Include parking lot to-dos in meeting notes.

Always include the parking lot in the meeting minutes. In this way new ideas, tangential comments, or questions are not lost, but rather shared and can be referred to by all participants. This approach makes everyone publicly accountable for the items and the next steps associated with them.

Conclusion

Make the parking lot method your own — adapt the above guidelines as needed, depending on your needs and context. Iterate on how you introduce it to others, the format, and theme of the parking lot (for example, try introducing a separate research-questions parking lot that will capture only open questions or assumptions about the data itself).

When used correctly, parking lots can do more than just document out-of-scope ideas and questions. They are a tangible artifact that ultimately help build common ground, increase productivity within a workshop, and contribute towards shared accountability amongst a team.