It’s amazing how many meetings still use “parking lots” to defer conversations that someone with power decides violates the scope of the agenda. The alternative is on the spot assignments. When something comes up that needs attention, we invite whoever wants to start work on it outside the meeting. We ask if anyone wants to help the initiators and make sure they have a plan to follow through. This is an especially important and respectful practice when meeting participants are not invited to contribute to meeting agendas, or when meetings simply don’t have the bandwidth to accommodate everything that needs attention by the group.