Phase 2 – Insight – Virtual Toolchest

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The goal of Inspirometer is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your meetings. But how do you know how effective your meetings are?

Meetings, like so many other things that happen within business, are a process. Over the past few decades, organisations have got very good at improving processes, but key to every successful process improvement has been the ability to measure that improvement in terms of the inputs and the outputs. The key reason meetings are still as inefficient as they are has been the difficulties involved in gathering meaningful meeting data. In fact many companies would be unable to tell you even how much time their people spend in meetings, let alone how effectively that time is spent.

This document is designed to help you productively navigate your way through the second of the three phases of achieving the benefits from the visibility you now have over your meetings. Key to this is understanding:

The steps for Phase 2 are:

Step 1 - Capture: Set up and encourage meeting feedback

Objective: Put in place the mechanisms to enable and encourage systematic feedback of meeting effectiveness

The first step to ensuring feedback is available for your meetings is to alert Inspirometer that these meetings will be happening. Inspirometer meeting stats data only looks backward into your calendar into what has actually happened, but meeting feedback needs to be set up in advance to make sure that people get polled at the right time. You can alert Inspirometer to meetings you are setting up into the future by including meetings@inspirometer.com in your invitation list. This can be set to happen automatically via the Outlook add-in. In Outlook 2010 or later, simply go to the ‘File’ menu, and then click on ‘Inspirometer’ in the left-hand margin. In Outlook 2007, go to the ‘Inspirometer’ menu, and then click on ‘Settings’. Toward the top of the page/panel that opens, tick the box labeled ‘Enable meeting feedback’. We recommend that you do this, since the intention is to enable feedback for all* meetings. However, feedback requests to people outside the organisation will initially be disabled to allow time to communicate what will be happening and manage their expectations.

*Meeting feedback will also be permanently disabled for any meeting subjects which begin with the text: ‘Private:’ or ‘Strictly Confidential:’ and there will be no record of the meeting subject in the database.

To enable meeting feedback on meetings which are already set up (with an invitation list which does not currently include meetings@inspirometer.com) you need to open up the meeting in your calendar, add meetings@inspirometer.com to the invitation, and then send the update to ‘all attendees’. This last step is vital. If you only send the update to ‘added or deleted attendees’ Inspirometer will not know who the other attendees are, and therefore will not be able to send them the micro-poll at the end of the meeting.

When you are confident that the micro-poll will be getting out to the right people, the next bit is to ensure that they give feedback on the meeting. Inspirometer is designed to make feedback as easy and as safe as possible, but this means nothing if these facts are not communicated to the attendees, whose main reservations are likely to be:

That the link will take them to a page with loads more questions (surely we’ve all been caught like that)
That people will know what they clicked, and there may be a bit of a backlash
That the data won’t be used, and that it is all a waste of time

The reality is that: (1) it is just one click – but they can leave a comment if they wish; (2) their response is as anonymous as it can be; (3) … well its your data, so tell them what you really hope to achieve through it – help them to understand that you really want this feedback, and to do something with it, and that you will keep them updated with progress. Then share the findings and explain what you will be doing as a result.

Of course, you also will be attending meetings, and it is important that you also provide feedback. We all carry a responsibility to help shape things, particularly when someone is asking for input which is as easy as a single click. The reality is, meetings need improvement, improvement requires feedback (even if it is only to encourage and confirm success), and feedback does not get any easier than this. If we fail to take this opportunity, we deserve any inefficiency and frustration we encounter as a result. We are responsible for our part in what happens.

But even if it is only a single click, no-one likes pouring their opinion into a black hole. So please explain how you will use the feedback, and how you will share your conclusions. Provide them with an analysis at the start of the next meeting, together with your suggestions for how to improve on this (or better still, engage their ideas for how to make things more effective). Make meeting effectiveness an integral (but brief) part of every meeting, and share the responsibility for making meetings better.

And keep an eye on response rates from your meetings – if you see them reducing, or fewer than you want them to be, ask people what the problem is in responding, and seek to address the issues. If they failed to respond because they thought it was not really important to you, and you fail to respond to their lack of response, then they were probably right. But if you ask questions, and don’t settle for low response rates, then they will recognise its importance and change their ways. And if you show them how you are using the feedback, and involve them in it, they will begin to appreciate its real value. You can also signpost its value to you by making time in the last minutes of a meeting for people to provide feedback – both via the micro-poll, and to a flipchart through a meeting review.

Step 2 - Analyse: Identify priority areas for improvement.

Objective: Identify priority areas for improvement and gather data and ideas to best guide that improvement

The alert which is sent when you receive the first feedback from a meeting contains some useful guidance in this regard:

Your feedback is NOT an evaluation of you! It is simply a reflection of ‘how people feel’ as a result of these interactions
‘How people feel’ is a result of a number of factors, many of which may be outside of your control
However, it is important for you to know ‘how they feel’ since this will affect what they do (or don’t do) as a result, and may affect your intended outcomes
Furthermore, while you may not control all the factors which affect ‘how people feel’, you are probably well positioned to help facilitate their improvement

These principles have been explored in part in the Introduction, but if you would like to take this further, take a look at Developing a positive attitude to feedback and Why even the best feedback can bring out the worst in us. Tracking your progress in ensuring productive meetings

Inspirometer is a feedback tool, not an evaluation tool. Negative responses are not a reflection on you, they are simply an opportunity to consider whether making changes might make it easier for you to achieve what you want for your attendees.

Furthermore, you will not be able to make those changes immediately. You are already pretty busy, and there are probably more opportunities than you can reasonably manage altogether. You will need to prioritise, therefore you (and your attendees) may have to accept that feedback scores may be less than you might ideally wish for a little while longer. However, if that is the case it is important to explain this and manage expectations – or get their help (see later).

In identifying priorities, there are a number of things to take into account:

Hopefully the data will make it clear which of your meetings provide the greatest opportunity for improvement
Your understanding of your role should make it clear which meetings are more important to the business
There may be some meetings where the attendees are likely to be more supportive of change
There may be some obvious meeting areas which are very easy to fix and would provide an early win

The last item, early wins, should not be underestimated. They can create an energy and an enthusiasm in people which can be worth far more than the tangible benefits from a big win, and they can build confidence in people that their feedback is being listened to and is making a difference.

Once you have identified which meetings to tackle first, the next step is to identify what causes a loss of effectiveness within them. How do you find out what it was that caused a level of dissatisfaction over the value of the meeting? There are a number of options available to you to explore this:

Although the feedback tool is single-click, there is also an opportunity to register a comment within the feedback process – if used, these comments may provide insight into the causes of loss of effectiveness. The comments can be accessed for specific meetings via the bar chart at the top of the page – click on a bar to see each day’s meetings and access the feedback reports.
By considering the Meetings Checklist. This poses a series of questions around potential sources of meeting ineffectiveness, and can provide insight into your own meetings for things you may want to change.
By using the feedback scores as a stimulus for dialogue with the attendees as a group or individually. The feedback is intended to be anonymous, and this should not be jeopardized even if you can recognise people from phrases used within the comments. But there is no harm in sharing the feedback to date, and asking for suggestions as to what aspects of the meeting and how it is conducted may be undermining its effectiveness for people.

In respect of the last point, and speaking to people individually: Even if the person you speak to is not the person with the issue, they may be alert enough as to what is going on to be able to suggest things that aren’t running quite as well as they could be. They are more likely to do this if they are confident in their own mind that you really are seeking to improve things rather than ‘correcting people’s misconceptions’.

Following step 1, you will be receiving feedback from your meetings. In reviewing this feedback, you may find that the results provoke some level of emotional response in you – either positive or negative or possibly both. This is a natural reaction, but in many cases the reaction is unhelpful, unwarranted and based on a misconception of the feedback you are receiving.

Step 3 - Improve: Make simple straightforward improvements.

Objective: Make simple straightforward changes and see what happens, do the obvious things, fix the basics

Having analysed any current priority issues in step 2, your next step is to set about making improvements around these.

If this is your first time through this process, it is quite likely that the issues you prioritise in step 2 have obvious solutions to them:

Put in place some of the things people say are missing, or remove things people claim are a problem
Implement some of the practical disciplines from the Meetings Checklist
Agree a contract with the attendees about “how we will prepare and conduct ourselves at the meeting”

But in some cases the solutions may not be so clear, and even the issues may appear a bit ‘fuzzy’. In these cases, we would encourage you to work with the meeting to draw out their ideas for change, and to identify those things which have the backing of the whole group. Ensure that during this process any issues or solutions are depersonalised so that everyone can agree them. Sharing ownership for the solution in this way increases support for ensuring its success, and it is a good strategy even for implementing some of the bullet points above – even where the solution appears to be obvious.

Whatever you (and possibly your group) intend to change, no matter how simple it is, it requires planning – fail to plan > plan to fail. Even if the plan is as simple as:

Stop bringing donuts to monthly meeting starting January
Review the success of this change at end of March meeting

It still needs actions to be taken by people (and possibly communicated to them) to ensure it happens. It still has steps of implementation and review which need owners and due dates. And laying these things out can help identify missing steps that might otherwise get overlooked:

1a. Cancel donut order at the bakery – Ruth – by 8th Jan
2a. Ask Sophie to include review at the end of March agenda – Joe – by 8th Jan

Where the change is more involved, and particularly where it requires a change in people’s behaviours or expectations, then the plan should include steps to:

Communicate (and probably sell) those changes to the people concerned
Provide any training, support and resources required to enable those changes
Signpost where the changes will apply to make their adoption smoother

Furthermore, the plan should always include a point for the group to review its effectiveness, and to make adjustments if required. By recognising that the changes are on trial, and that there will be another decision point when more information is available, even those who might otherwise be resistant to their implementation will be more open to trying it out.

As changes are made, you will be able to track their impact through trends in the Inspirometer feedback, and you will be able to share this back with everybody. The power of this sense of involvement should not be underestimated, as illustrated by the famous Hawthorne experiments of the 1930s.

While it is likely that there will be many improvements that can be effected in this way, some of the issues which undermine meeting effectiveness may be outside of the authority and/or ability of the people directly concerned. In these cases management have a vital role in identifying this, and with putting in place the necessary authority and ability to enable progress.

The management dashboard enables management to see an overview of meetings both within specific areas, and across them. By monitoring the trends in these, they can identify where people are struggling to make improvements, and can work with them to resolve the issues that are blocking their progress, and to share ideas and successful practices from one group to another. However, within this process it is crucially important that the ownership and enthusiasm for improvement remains with people directly involved, and management must avoid any strategy which risks undermining this. Inspirometer is a learning tool, not an evaluation tool – in other words, its priority is about safely identifying and addressing vulnerabilities and weaknesses, not about demonstrating that they don’t exist. The motives of learning and evaluation are different and often incompatible. For the Inspirometer to remain fully effective this distinction needs to be understood and maintained.

Step 4 - Benefit: Ensure your improvements save you time.

Objective: Realise the benefit of meeting improvement through increased progress and fewer/shorter meetings

The purpose of Inspirometer is to improve the effectiveness of meetings, not to reduce the time they consume. However, effective meetings achieve more powerful outcomes in fewer meetings and less time, and so the net result is that meeting time will reduce naturally. Or rather, it would were it not for a little thing called Parkinson’s law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. In other words, despite making a 30 minute meeting 50% more efficient, the 10 minutes saved will be consumed nevertheless – unless of course, the scheduled time for the meeting is reduced to 20 minutes.

t seems to be a little know fact that you can set any times you wish for your Start and Finish times in an Outlook or Google calendar – you are not constrained to accepting the proffered 30 minute intervals. Instead, you can click in the time field and type in whatever time you want. Surprisingly, many people are not aware of this fact – and we are not attempting sarcasm here, there are literally people who do not realise that this is possible. As a result, many meetings are scheduled for the nearest half-hour interval even though they may only require 15 minutes of that interval.

This ‘skill’ of scheduling meetings for a precise duration is key to gaining the time benefits of shorter meetings back into your’s and your people’s calendars. As your meetings become more effective, you will achieve more in less time, but in reality this may only be 15 minutes in a one-hour meeting, and if you are not able to schedule future meetings for 45 minutes, that time saving will be lost to you and your colleagues.

Where your meetings concern projects, the time saving benefit may be realised simply by completing the project early. But in most other cases, the time saving can only be realised by scheduling fewer shorter meetings, and that requires people to recognise and abandon the 30 minute and monthly interval mindsets we have adopted.

But the benefits of more effective meetings do not solely have to be realised in time savings (even though, given the time pressures on most people’s schedules, that would be nice). The benefits can also be realised in terms of creative and cultural opportunities. Rushed and inefficient meetings often do not allow the space required for a group of people to creatively explore the options that may be available for more innovative solutions, or to build deeper relationships and cultural cohesion between each other. Conversely, efficient meetings can provide more opportunities for people to work together on new ideas, and this builds a greater sense of engagement between people and with the organisation as a whole. Values get explored and better understood, and a sense of mutual responsibility develops. This in turn leads to better meeting behaviours both inside and outside of the meeting – actions are more likely to get completed, and preparation better undertaken. And these outside meeting behaviours provide further opportunities for effectiveness by enabling asynchronous elements to the meeting, such as devolving a chunk of the updates, and even some of the decisions, to forums and social networks – all of which can help to reduce meeting time.

However, it is important to note that the improvements you put in place can easily be eroded if you are not mindful to maintain them. As Thomas Jefferson put it, ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. If you reap the harvest, but don’t maintain the planting, you will soon find yourself in a worse position than you were when you started and things will start to break. For this reason, it is vitally important to ensure that feedback remains high and honest. This will give you early warning of any emerging problems, and enable you to address them before they undermine what you have achieved.

Finally, benefits can sometimes be imagined when they are not real. Unless there is a real reduction in time spent in meetings and/or a dramatic hike in business performance, then any impression of improved meeting effectiveness is probably false. Therefore it is vitally important to baseline current meeting statistics and to compare these with the statistics for the same cohort of people in the future. If the trend from the baseline is not downward, then the only way those meetings could be more effective is if more had been achieved within them. And if there is no corresponding improvement in business performance as a result, then this is clearly not the case, and so the effectiveness gains must be getting lost somewhere, and we need to find out where and fix the leak.

But if your trend from the baseline IS downwards, and your business performance has improved, then your meetings have truly become more effective. In this case, we would encourage you to share your results and celebrate your success with your people in a way that they clearly feel recognised and appreciated for what they have achieved.

Click on the titles above to gain an understanding of each step and how you will implement it in your own work.