How to CC Your Way to Better Meetings

So you’ve signed up for LessMeeting and don’t know what to do next? You see a bunch of information about an Outlook plugin, but you don’t have Outlook! What are you supposed to do?

Fortunately there are two alternatives to the Outlook plugin for generating meetings:

1. CC or forward each of your calendar events to cc@lessmeeting.com
2. Use the New Meeting button on the Dashboard and Meeting pages

Using the New Meeting button is pretty straightforward, so we’ll focus on using the CC functionality.

How to upload to LessMeeting when you are the meeting ORGANIZER

If you are the meeting organizer, create the meeting as you normally would.  The screenshot below will show this in Gmail, but you can use any other email provider such as Hotmail, or Yahoo!.

1. Create the calendar event as you would normally by entering a time, subject, location, and description. Also add all of the attendees.
2. Add the email address cc@lessmeeting.com to the list of attendees.
3. At the bottom of the description include a numbered agenda (including sub-agenda items) with the time for each item with this format:
   
   Agenda:
   1. Agenda Item One (5 min)
   - Sub agenda one A
   - Sub agenda one B
   2. Agenda Item Two (2 min)
   3. Agenda Item Three (30 min)
   
   
4. After the Agenda add tags in the following format:
   
   Tags: tag1, tag2
   
   
5. Save and send the meeting.
6. Go to the LessMeeting website (www.lessmeeting.com) to take meeting notes

If you can’t remember the cc@lessmeeting.com email address, it is displayed on the main Dashboard page after you login.

How to upload to LessMeeting when you are a meeting PARTICIPANT

Uploading a meeting when you are the participant is as easy as forwarding the invite to cc@lessmeeting.com. When you open the meeting on the website you’ll need to enter the agenda items unless the meeting organizer included the agenda in the original invite.Some other things to note:

• Updates to the meeting time will be reflected on the LessMeeting website
• Meetings that are deleted will be removed from the LessMeeting website

We hope that the "CC" functionality provides a good alternative to those of you that don't use Outlook. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know by emailing staff@lessmeeting.com!

Meeting Key Performance Indicators

At LessMeeting, we want you to be able to see what happened for any meeting at a glance:
 - Decisions: √
 - Actions: √
 - Notes: √
 - Overall Quality: √

So when we started hearing from customers that they wanted to take this further to the Key Performance Indicators they were reviewing in meetings, we took notice.

Was this a key piece of meetings we were missing?


Question 1: Why would you want to add KPI data into LessMeeting?
You probably already have your indicators in a Spreadsheet somewhere, or sometimes a whole KPI Database.  So what motivates you to add them to a meeting?

1) Quick "inline" visibility to the health of your indicators.
    - See trends and problem areas projected in a conference room and in the notes that get sent out.
2) Disseminate Data
    - An ability to get/reference information coming out of meetings has opened many customers' eyes to the value of just how many people get on board this way.
3) One Place
    - By uploading your metrics to a meeting page, and referencing high level values inline, all of your meeting data is available in one place.


Question 2: How do you make this simple enough?
KPIs have all kinds of methodology behind them: goals, targets, milestones, target lines, trends, statistics, etc.

Simple, but useful: we wanted something that you could setup in a few seconds, and wouldn't take 2 hours to understand.  That said, we still wanted it to be able to convey important information about KPI health in an instant.

1) Adding KPIs
    - Name: what are you tracking
    - Thresholds: when do you want to show red, green, and yellow.  This is optional, so you can just show a trend graph if you want.
    - Chart Type: bar, line or point
    - Data Type: format my data as $, % or just a plain number
       ... that's it.  We take care of the rest
2) Updating KPI Vaues
    - We decided that KPIs in LessMeeting make the most sense as an addition to Recurring Meetings.  So to add/input values for your KPIs, you simply navigate between meetings and add your data point.  Everything will update in realtime.

Question 3: What KPIs should I track?
Key Performance Indicators are for tracking really important variables that indicate the health of your business.  For LessMeeting, KPIs are:

1) Daily Uniques - how many people are coming to the site
2) Conversion Rates - what percent of visitors are signing up for an account
3) Monthly Revenue - how much are we generating in sales/month
4) Monthly Costs - how much is our combined Ad Spend, Hosting costs, Development Costs, and Employee Costs
5) Daily Meetings Run in LessMeeting - how much is the tool getting used by our existing users

Your business KPIs might be things like: Calls Answered in the First Minute, Production Outages, Tickets Logged, Tickets Resolved, Pre-Tax Profit, etc, etc

Try to think through what is CRITICAL to reviewing in a particular meeting.  Most meetings needing KPI reviews will be recurring status meetings around a particular area of your business.

Focus on what makes that part of your business tick.

That's all for now!  We'll be releasing KPIs in a few days, so try them out and let us know what you think.

Please Stop Talking!! 6 Tips to Hush a Talkative Meeting Attendee

We've all been there before.  You're trying to get through a meeting, and Bob (let's call him Bob), just will NOT stop talking.  It might be because Bob wants to sound smart, or he really thinks you aren't taking in his point about the TPS reports being redundant, but he just keeps rambling.

So, the question, naturally, is... how do you make him stop talking?

Over on the LinkedIn Project Management Link group, Jennifer Whitt asked this question, and got over 381 Project Managers to weigh in.  Here are some of the best ways that these heroic managers of jabber-jaws suggested to reel in your talking fish:
 

1) Distribute an Agenda with Time Allotments

This concept was suggested over and over again.  Prepare an agenda with time allotments, distribute it, set time boundaries, and then adhere to them.  The easiest way to move forward was to remind people of the specific item being discussed, and of the need to press forward to stay on time.  In other words, use the time as your scapegoat.
 

2) Have a Visible Parking Lot

When things get off course, have a flip chart (or otherwise visible) parking lot to capture important topics you just don't have time for in this meeting.  Make it a habit to review this list so people don't feel like you're just using it to shut them up.
 

3) Have a Goal you're trying to Achieve

If everyone in the room knows what needs to be completed by the end of the meeting, it's much easier to cut off the discussion and ask "Is this helping us get to X?".
 

4) Set Ground Rules up Front

Does everyone in the room know what their individual expectation is in this meeting? Review what you expect to accomplish, how you intend to do it, and how you expect people to participate upfront.  Are we raising hands, interrupting, passing bean bags to speak, going around the room?  The key is to let everyone know.
 

5) Summarize and Repeat

It's possible the megaphone in the room just isn't convinced that anyone understands them.  Thus... they keep trying to explain themselves. Try the old, "Let me try to summarize your point" ... "Is that what you're saying?"
 

6) Listen to your Attendees

This one might be tough to take, but it's possible all the talking is because you're not doing a good job incorporating what your attendees are telling you. Make sure you are not only acknowledging, but USING the valuable information you're getting.  If not, why invite them in the first place?  Value their time, and maybe they'll be more likely to value yours.
 

In summary, provide structure and set your expectations upfront.  Then make sure to listen and adapt to what your fellow attendees are telling you.

Oh, and if you want to make steps 1-3 easier... use LessMeeting :)