Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

 

Here is a little quiz. On average how many meetings do you participate in each month at your place of work? With that thought in mind, on average, how many meetings go on in your organization each month? And the last question, on average, how much total time is involved in planning each meeting?

 

Most likely you had a few questions while taking your little quiz. What constitutes a meeting? What is meant by total meeting planning time? In answer to the first question, let’s agree that a meeting is any meeting that involves work issues. It involves employees but could involve others from outside the organization. It could be held inside the organizations offices or elsewhere. It wouldn’t include a drop-in meeting as you are passing someone’s office. It wouldn’t include a meeting as you pass in the hall. It wouldn’t include training meetings. It wouldn’t include a meeting at the local Rotary Club where you just show up as a representative of your organization. You get the picture.

 

Let’s define total meeting planning time as the cumulative time everyone involved contributes to planning the meeting from the moment someone says, We need a meeting until the meeting actually starts. So this would include all the time involved with checking peoples schedules to establish the date and time that everyone can attend, developing an agenda, making assignments, arranging for a room, food, and AV equipment. Include any follow-up reminders, etc. Remember to include everyone’s time, i.e. the person initiating the contact as well as the person on the other side of the phone call or email.

 

Now take the quiz again.

 

I had the opportunity to have 10 similar organizations take this quiz. Here is some data. On average each organization had 22 employees (FTEs), held 15 meetings/month, spent 61 minutes planning /meeting, and held 1.2 meetings/FTE/month.

 

My suspicion is that both the number of meetings held per month and the average planning time per meeting are lower than they actually are. In any case, this data suggests that our average organization spends 15 x 61 = 915 minutes per month or 10,980 minutes (183 hours) per year planning meetings.

 

If meeting planning could be improved by 50 percent, we could save over two person-work-weeks of time each year. A 50 percent improvement seems like a big improvement, but it is definitely doable. The way to begin the improvement is to standardize the process of meeting planning. Get a team of individuals together and flow chart the process. You will be amazed how many steps are involved, and you will get some good ideas of what steps can be discarded.

 

Caution! Remember that planning the meetings faster but not better could cost you much more time in the meetings than you save in the planning.

 

Caution! Another conclusion you might reach that could be an error is to just have fewer meetings. Good, necessary meetings are very important. They are real work and vital to the relationship and communication fabric of an organization. They just have to be done well.

 

Standardizing something as simple and mundane as planning a meeting could be the start of standardizing much more important processes in your organization. Remember that every little bit of time saved and frustration eliminated will make your organization better.

 

P.S. Thank you to everyone at the ISPE Annual Meeting who mentioned that they read the Getting Better articles in the IPE. It is always nice to hear that someone reads the articles.