| Meetings are expensive.
They often require a large investment of money, time and efforts. Yet,
only rarely do meeting planners or facilitators ask the obvious questions:
What is our return on investment (ROI)? What can we do measure the ROI
and maximize it during meetings?
This article offers
ideas on boosting your ROI in a meeting. These ideas are drawn from
3 books by
Eli Mina:
1. The investment:
Start by calculating your investment in the meeting. There will be hard
costs (staff salaries, consultant fees, travel) and soft costs (disruptive
effects and human toll on people). You may find yourself astonished
by how large your investment is. There may also be long term costs,
such as the consequences of making bad decisions at a meeting.
2. The expected ROI: Ask yourself: What am I buying for this
investment? Am I buying ideas to increase profits, boost efficiency
and reduce costs? Will we reach consensus on controversial issues, and
thereby prevent or resolve costly disputes? Will we boost staff morale,
loyalty and commitment levels? Will we enhance communication, and thereby
reduce the likelihood that the work of one team will duplicate or undermine
the work of another?
3. The assessment: Having established your expected ROI, consider
a simple - but rarely asked - question: Is the expected ROI substantial
enough? If your answer is yes, you are doing better than most meeting
planners. But don't stop there: Seek to maximize your ROI and get an
even greater bang for the buck. Your organization deserves nothing less
!
4. Less costly alternatives: If the expected ROI on the meeting
seems marginal or non-existent, look for ways of boosting it (see further).
However, if it becomes clear that a meeting is too costly for the expected
ROI, consider canceling it altogether, or consider less costly "virtual
meetings" for achieving the same (or even better) results: E-meetings,
teleconferences, videoconferences, etc.
5. Agenda design: Assuming you go ahead with the meeting, "budget"
time for each agenda item based on the anticipated ROI for it (and not
based on the personal wishes of outspoken members). In many meetings,
90% of the time is invested in things that don't make a difference.
With good and deliberate planning, you can change this sad reality.
6. Learn to say no, graciously but firmly. If a proposed agenda
item is not "ripe" for productive discussions, have it postponed.
If it will clearly provide little or no value, drop it from the agenda
altogether, or - if it must be included - allocate as little time for
it as possible.
7. Structure the discussions to maximize the ROI. Focus them
on key issues which affect your broad mandate, and avoid wasting time
on side issues. Focus on addressing real problems, instead of symptoms
and surface issues. Keep the meeting on track and avoid costly digressions.
Feel free to ask: "How does this discussion relate to the current
issue on the agenda, which is ___?".
8. Let guest speakers know in advance what issues the group is
most interested in and what specific benefits their presentations should
provide. Also let them know in advance how much time they will have,
and how you will alert them that time is running out.
Eli Mina is a professional meeting chairman, Registered Parliamentarian,
seminar leader, and a leading expert on meetings and rules of order.
He specializes in chairing contentious meetings, demystifying and humanizing
the rules of order, resolving organizational disputes, and shared decision
making. Further explore Eli's website for more details on Eli's
work and his
books. To sign up for his free e-mail newsletter, click
here.
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