[GianFabien]

  #1  Meetings
  #2  Managers who won't put anything into writing and keep changing their minds.

The two, in my experience, are highly correlated. As much as I try, I've never been able to enforce the discipline of demanding meeting agendas to be written up and circulated with at least 2 days notice. Maybe its my extreme bad luck, but I've had too many fuzzy thinkers as managers.

[shivc]

interesting - how have you managed to deal with those? especially the fuzzy brain syndrome? has it also affected how performance and reporting is perceived by the managers? since moving goalposts and unclear agendas would also mean that it would affect performance in reports and project reviews

[GianFabien]

There is no cure for fuzzy brained managers, especially if they are friends with the upper managers.

I simply took minutes in meetings and presented requests to be signed by relevant managers. For the most part they declined. But I filed them anyway. Being a contractor sooner or later I declined to renew / extend my contract and moved on.