PASSION FOR PROJECTS 2023 CONGRESS, at SPACE Stockholm March 13-14

Save your seat! Early Bird offer until Jan 31 for members and non members.?

The Future of Meetings

There is an ongoing inflation,?a meeting inflation.

The latest development in IT as well as the recent, urgent demand to continue to communicate and run businesses despite isolation and lock-downs has led to some significant advances and change in how we meet. It is now possible to hold and attend meetings without extensive travelling which is much more sustainable for the environment and less time consuming.?

But, not having to leave our desks to go to a meeting, or from one to another, also gives us more time for… more meetings. Fresh numbers show that the number of meetings we are in during a day have grown extremely during the pandemic. According to Microsoft, the average user saw a 252% increase in the amount of time spent in meetings each week between 2020 and 2021. Also indicating that this is not all good, is a global in-depth survey by Asana Inc 2021, where 10 000 workers across the world reports that more than 55% of their day is lost to work coordination, rather than the actual tasks they had been hired to do. Harvard Business Review reported in March 2022 that 92% of employees consider meetings costly and unproductive.

Is a digital meeting really sustainable if it is not efficient?

Companies lose billions every year on inefficient meetings and the quality of meetings have not developed even nearly in pace with the role they play in business- and project-success today. Just think of all the people in your meetings multiplied with time spent and you realise it is one of the largest investments of your project in total. We need to stop having unnecessary meetings and inefficient meetings. With so many people working remote we also need to remember that digital meetings can be just as exhausting and can lead to "digital fatigue". Just because we can go from one meeting to another in a one minute, doesn't mean we should. In a sustainable meeting culture, we need to separate the "need to meet" from work related meetings, and take the time (plan) time for meeting preparations, follow ups and breaks. Another thing is the definition of meetings... working digital and remote with your team doesn't mean you are in meetings but your still not available for somebody to book you for a meeting right!? A new development according to Microsoft is that people has started to plan "no meeting slots" in their meeting calendars and isn't that a sign that our continuous digital collaborations and the traditional idea of meeting don't really work together and needs to develop.

Meetings whether it is in the same room or any other format are important. Meetings are means of collaboration and where cooperation can take root , where you lead and a project or goal is accomplished in the best way possible. But from the numbers above we can conclude that the inflation in meetings also mean a lot of people in a lot of bad meetings. A bad business meeting is one that lacks purpose. Nobody enjoys meeting for meeting’s sake, and therefore a meeting without a clear objective is frustrating for everybody involved as well as a very bad investment of time and resources.

Bad meetings is said to be the most underestimated business problem of our time and at PMI Sweden we recognise the future of meetings as a major and interesting issue and close to brick and mortar to any project and decided to dedicate our next year's Passion for Projects Congress entirely to ?The Future of Meetings.

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What is PMI's and our members' role, reason, challenges and possibilities?to drive this development?

It is crucial for all organisations and projects to have a sustainable meeting culture with productive, engaging and efficient meetings. Therefore it is a top priority for us at PMI to build awareness, competence and knowledge in this field including:

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Meeting Culture,?Meeting Management, Meeting Technology

Meet us at Space in Stockholm 13-14 March in a big meet about the future of meetings.?Listen to thought leaders, scientists, futurists, experts, HR professionals and communication experts talking about the development of meetings. Try out different meeting formats, technique and tools and build your meeting management competence in sessions facilitated by leading certified trainers and practitioners in this field. Learn from experienced Project Managers sharing their lessons learned.?

We want you to feel inspired, motivated, equipped and ready to drive the future of meetings when the congress comes to an end.?

And of course we want you to mingle, network and have a really good time, so do not miss the party on Monday evening.?

Save your seat! Early Bird offer until Jan 31 for members and non members.?

Best Regards,

The Passion for Projects Congress 2023 team