Productivity is essential to business success. It's time to break those bad habits and embrace a faster, easier and environmentally responsible way to manage our time and our business.
Statistics indicate that worldwide 5.6 hours are spent in meetings every week. Although this points to a busy and active workforce, the same statistics show that roughly half of that time is wasted, with almost 70% of workers feeling that meetings are unproductive.
These reports don't even touch on the time wasted waiting for taxis or trains, sitting in traffic queues or hanging around in airport lounges. Although there's a lot to be said for the PDA, there's only so much you can achieve when you are caught in a traffic jam on the freeway.
It's important to look into why we are unproductive in meetings. There's a genuine need for colleagues to meet, share ideas, work through scenarios and reach decisions about business processes.
We prize industry specialists who have a thorough understanding of what they do. This requires us to meet regularly, exchange information and get a view of the bigger picture.
However, despite our best intentions, a half hour meeting around a boardroom table can become much more time consuming.
The old way
Consider this typical scenario for a client meeting:
- A consulting team based on the outskirts of the city is due to meet at their client's headquarters in the CBD.
- Total travel time for two consultants could be up to two hours (half an hour each way for each person - or maybe more depending on weather and traffic).
- The meeting lasts for one hour.
- One person takes the meeting minutes, circulates them, requests feedback/updates, makes revisions and re-circulates them. Perhaps this takes a further hour at least.
The total human capital cost is five hours - for a one hour meeting! Take that a step further and imagine the costs incurred for a larger scale meeting and interstate travel. No wonder we feel unproductive.
The new way
In our Web 2.0 world, collaboration is key.
The way we work is changing. An increasingly online environment means businesses aren't shackled to an expensive city-centre location. More people are working from home or basing offices outside the CBD.
The traditional 9am-6pm (or more likely 8am-8pm) working day is being fractured by an increasing demand for work-life balance as well as an expanding global economy that transgresses time zones.
New processes
To maximise the positive opportunities of this new economy, it's time to refresh our business processes.
An easy and low cost way to streamline communication and collaboration is to make the most of our familiarity with working on the web. Instead of battling the commuter route every time we need to bounce ideas around or check in with the team, why not meet online instead?
Meeting online
Web based meetings offer a real-time, personalised, collaborative environment. More than just a conference call, you can launch instant sales demonstrations, share and revise documents, whiteboard ideas, prepare presentations and develop visuals.
Meetings don't need to be restricted to three or four people - you can demonstrate products or present to an audience of hundreds. Your audience members can raise their (virtual) hands, ask questions, share documents, add information and really be part of the presentation, regardless of their location.
The additional advantage of such a collaborative format is that on-the-spot decision making and real-time document revisions can significantly reduce the post-meeting approval process. Much of the work can be done in the meeting, rather than asking individuals to work independently, submit their papers and collating information afterwards.
If you can get the content right, with everyone's input, and distribute the notes and results straight away, there's no need for endlessly circulated and revised meeting minutes.
We live in a world of synchronous communication. Although face-to-face meetings are no doubt useful, clinging to an old-fashioned habit and wasting people's valuable time driving through an increasingly congested city, or jumping on a plane to meet for an hour, isn't a practical way to do business any more.
Keeping it green
In a world of rising sea levels and global warming, we should also take some responsibility for reducing our carbon footprint.
Moving even 50% of your meetings to an online environment can start to reduce some of the carbon emissions from traditional commuter travel.