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Meeting Planning Calendar Templates for 2019

Free Online Tutorial & Calendar Download

Most people will have heard the story of the American corporate president who had the hourly salaries of his board members entered into an electronic display, which updated the cost of each meeting as it progressed.

He would periodically turn to the display and ask the meeting participants if they had justified the accumulated cost. No doubt this was an effective way of keeping minds focused.

However, simple salary based calculations take no account of the other costs associated with a meeting. Here are some examples:

Cost of Overruns

Every meeting has associated with it a time and a cost – but how many half-hour meetings actually last 30 minutes? Far more overrun than finish early, so even quantifying the time of the meeting isn’t that easy.

Preparation & Follow Up

You would normally expect to spend some time ahead of a meeting – preparing for it. You would also spend some time following the meeting in pursuing tasks that have arisen from it.

Typically, a meeting could occupy three to five times the scheduled duration of the meeting.

Travel costs

People often travel quite long distances in order to attend meetings and not only must this cost be factored in but also an appropriate allowance for any non-productive time.

Overhead and Administration 

This category includes the fixed costs of the meeting venue, whether it is in-house or external, as well as the cost of hiring any presentation equipment that may be required.

It will include all of the communication and production costs associated with the meeting – items such as stationery, printing, telecommunications, and postage. If the meeting uses video conferencing, then this can be quite a significant cost.

Opportunity costs

While people are in meetings they are not able to carry out their normal duties. For example, a sales meeting may take a number of key sales staff off the road for a day.

Sales opportunities will inevitably be missed and this needs to be considered when estimating the true cost of the meeting? Best advice – use calendars. 🙂

What do you think.

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