A simple strategy for making meetings being on time

Since we work actively with lean in our strategic work, being on time when it comes to meetings is important. If you have ten participants who have to wait for 5 minutes for the guy who is late, you waste 50 minutes.

One reason for people being late to meetings is that they are late from other meetings. We can all understand that if you have a meeting between 2 and 3 and the next meeting start at 3, you will be late.

I had the first steering meeting for one of my projects today and one of the suggestions from the group was that meetings always start 5 minutes past and end 5 minutes before. So, the next steering group will be between 14:05 and 14:55. This leaves time for toilets, coffee or just sprinting between conference rooms.

But someone might add that why all these meetings and of course the amount of meetings is also something that should be debated. But if you’re going to have a meeting, why not making a bit easier on the participants.