5 Ps of a Meeting – Ensuring Your Next Meeting is Effective

Consultants excel at solving problems that span across teams, organizations, and industries. By using a variety of methodologies and tools, they can quickly and effectively address issues for their clients—and who doesn’t love a quick and effective solution?

One such issue is ineffective meetings. Fortunately, there are many solutions available, and one of the most effective is 'the 5Ps of a Meeting.' This approach is a favorite among consultants for its simplicity, effectiveness, and ability to prevent ineffective meetings from happening in the first place.

By mastering the 5Ps, consultants can transform meetings into productive and purposeful sessions, ensuring every moment spent is valuable and impactful.

So, what are the 5Ps? The 5Ps are Purpose, Participants, Process, Payoff, and Preparation (some suggest it should be 6Ps including Pizza).

Purpose: Every meeting should have a clear purpose, which must be more specific than just a subject line calling for a 'daily meeting' (why should the team meet daily?).

Participants: Listing the participants makes the organizer think about who they are inviting and why. The organizer doesn’t have to list the names in the body of the invite, but should nevertheless make a conscious decision about who should be part of the meeting.

Process: How will this meeting be conducted? What is the agenda and the time allocated for each agenda item? This is key, as it prompts the meeting organizer to think about the necessary time for the meeting, helping the team avoid setting meetings in 30-minute chunks just because that is the norm.

Payoff: What does the organizer want to accomplish by the end of the meeting? This should be specific so that the meeting participants can be held accountable.

Preparation: What preparation is needed from the participants? This helps the meeting organizer revisit the payoff and appropriately size the participant list. Including the 5Ps in every meeting invite is the easiest and most effective way to ensure and prepare for an effective meeting.

Interested in topics related to “Effective Meetings”? Click here to learn more.

Interested in becoming part of our team? Check out our current openings page to find a role that best suits you.

At Trindent Consulting, we are a global technical augmentation company with a passion for solving complex problems in the energy, healthcare, and finance sectors. With over 100 client partnerships, our success centers on prioritizing sustainable profit margin improvements and delivering impactful results.

As a medium-sized firm, we cultivate a close-knit environment where every team member knows one another. Our people are fun, and our work is intriguing and diverse. We actively strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone has equal opportunities for growth and success