Every team has topics that refuse to die. You think you've settled the matter. You moved on. You made some progress.
Then boom, there it is again! Your next meeting somehow brings the same discussion back into the spotlight.
For me, that one topic that refuses to die is what are the legal requirements for accessibility. I swear! Every meeting it's the same questions that get rehashed.
- Do we need WCAG 2.1 AA or AAA?
- What about the 2.2 standards?
- What about the upcoming WCAG 3.0?
Then someone mentions a lawsuit they heard about. Another person brings up conflicting advice from something they read online.
And just like that, the meeting is derailed.
When you're trying to build accessible products, these circular discussions are particularly draining. When teams can't agree on basic compliance targets, it becomes impossible to know what standards to design and develop against.
The worst part?
Everyone knows it's happening. You can see the collective eye-roll when someone asks "but what does the law actually require?"
Yet somehow, nobody stops the conversation before it spirals into familiar territory about legal grey areas and risk tolerance. These repetitive discussions are just plain boring.
People mentally check out when these topics resurface. What you need to understand as the meeting facilitator is that you're literally letting people steal time. A 30-minute meeting becomes 45 minutes because you spent the first 15 rehashing legal requirements.
I have a simple solution for dealing with repetitive topics.
Step one. Get clarity on requirements, make a decision and document it together with the rationale for that decision. That's it. There's no step two.
The next time someone asks questions about a decision you've already made, point them to that document and move on.