Assessment – continuous learning

Two facts about the majority of meetings are:

1. They fall a long way short of being fully effective; and
2. The organiser will be largely oblivious to fact 1.

And these two facts are the primary reasons meetings have not improved. Because, unlike virtually every other process they lack data on their performance. As a result, unlike virtually every other process, its performance has remained largely static.

A basis for continuous learning

The assessment step provides the means by which this issue is redressed. And meetings are ideal candidates for continuous learning, providing we create the data.

Ensure data is used to track honest and open attendee perceptions of the value of your meetings. And use the results to:

• Analyse what works and what doesn’t, and fix any shortfalls
• Experiment with the effectiveness of different meeting tools and approaches
• Initiate dialogue and engage the attendees in improving meeting performance
• Trend meeting improvement to increase all aspects of effectiveness and engagement
• Establish a culture of continuous learning to constantly improve

But where does the data for continuous learning come from?

People have struggled to create a system for measuring meeting effectiveness. As a result, most attempts have been too complex, or too cumbersome. Part of the issue has been the paradigm of the purpose of meeting. Accept the paradigm that the value of a meeting leaves in the heads and hearts of its attendees, and metrics become much simpler. People will act in accordance with their perceived value – so ask them what that perception is.

For a complete copy of the Maturity Model, click here.
For a selection of resources which support ‘action’, please go to: https://meeting.toolchest.org/tag/assessment/