Meeting Effectiveness – Organizational Meeting Structure

The Global Business Travel Association coined the term Strategic Meeting Management Program (SMMP) over a decade ago and defined it as:

“A disciplined approach to managing enterprise-wide meeting and event activities, processes, suppliers, and data in order to achieve measurable business objectives that align with an organizations’ strategic goals/vision, and delivers value in the form of quantitative savings, risk mitigation, and service quality.”

Over the past 10 years, there has been a brisk movement by organizations of all sizes to implement Strategic Meeting Management Programs (SMMP) to achieve cost savings and mitigate risk. Corporate meetings and events have been referred to as the “final frontier” of unmanaged spending because in many organizations the function of planning and contracting for meetings and events is so decentralized and fragmented.

 

How Are SMMP Meetings Different From Our Everyday Meetings?

There is an important distinction that must be made when we talk about the types of meetings and events that are the focus of traditional SMMP and the 11+ million business meetings that happen inside of United States organizations every workday.

• SMMP meetings refer to events in which larger groups, usually planned well in advance, are brought together for a particular purpose.
• The 11+ million meetings that happen daily in US organizations are typically smaller in scale, require far less advance planning, usually don’t involve substantial contracting with outside vendors, and primarily are used as communication vehicles to advance specific projects and other more granular initiatives within organizations.

Similarities Between SMMP Meetings And Everyday Meetings

Although we are drawing a distinction between SMMP type meetings and everyday business meetings within organizations there are far more similarities than differences. The distinction is being made to disambiguate traditional SMMP meetings and everyday business meetings so that we can illustrate that although they are different there are many shared goals and objectives when it comes to both types of meetings and the strategies for managing both.

Streamlining Meeting Management Functions

Organizations who begin to take a look at their SMMP type meeting management functions quickly see that there are efficiencies that can be gained by centralizing and streamlining meeting management functions. Meetings and events are big investments and the benefits of designing and implementing an SMMP will have a substantial impact on the organization and key stakeholders.

These benefits include:

• Achieving management and stakeholder meeting goals and objectives
• Focus on core competencies
• Improved planning processes/team productivity
• Transparency of metrics / demonstrate real cost savings
• Risk mitigation (financial / legal / compliance)
• Meeting consolidation / leveraged spend
• Improved meeting quality/learner outcomes/attendee experience
• Integrate other meeting functions, including registration and travel planning
• Robust technology/data management
• 24/7 access to management / financial reports

The Challenge Of Applying The SMMP Strategy

Organizations who recognize the need for SMMP and begin the process of designing and implementing an SMMP strategy must overcome a formidable challenge – getting their arms around current meeting spend. Spend is typically decentralized and rarely falls within a single line item in their general ledger.

Beyond meeting spend there are other key factors that you must determine such as who are the primary meeting planners within the organization, what are the current approval processes, how is contracting with outside vendors (i.e. hotels, travel, etc.) being handled, how are outcomes being captured and how is the return on investment (ROI) being determined.

As you can see implementing an SMMP is a very complex process that will require a significant commitment from senior management and close collaboration across the organization.

What’s Your Strategy?

When it comes to the 11+ million business meetings that happen daily in US organizations there exists an equal if not greater opportunity to realize substantial cost savings, mitigate risk, improve collaboration across your organization and most importantly transform the way that people view meetings from a time-consuming drain on their workdays to a valuable communication tool for advancing the initiatives of the organization.

Strategic Meeting Management Outline

Much like an SMMP strategy organizations must develop a strategy for how they handle their daily internal business meetings. This strategy, which contains many of the same facets of your SMMP strategy, should include the following:

1. Baseline the current state of meetings – before an organization can implement improvements they must get their arms around the current state of meetings in their organization.  This includes how many meetings they are having, who is attending the meetings, what results from the meetings are producing, and how effective are the meetings.  We offer an assessment called the Meeting Effectiveness Evaluation Tool (MEET) that can provide you with key insights into your organization’s meetings and their performance.  The assessment takes about 2 weeks and consists of a 38-question anonymous web-based survey that is deployed within your organization. At the end of the assessment, you will receive a detailed report that provides critical insight into the state of your meetings with specific recommendations for improvement.
2. Standardize your meeting process – Implement a standard meeting process, like our Powerfully Simple Meeting (PSM) process and tools for planning, executing, communicating, and tracking meetings.
3. Train your organization – ensure that everyone in your organization understands the new meeting process and is equipped with the four (4) essential skills for effective meeting leadership.  We offer several options for training – click here to learn more.
4. Reassess meeting performance to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) – follow up with another assessment 3-6 months after the standard meeting process has been implemented and the organization has been trained to measure improvement and target additional areas for improvement.

Initiate Meeting Effectiveness – Transform Today

Organizations that are committed to improving their daily business meetings stand to reap significant benefits in terms of productivity and efficiency. If you are ready to change the way your organization handles daily business meetings contact us today at sales@meetingresult.com to learn more and get started.

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