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.

However, as we reached 10,000 feet and the flight attendant hawked the Gogo Inflight Internet it hit me – I didn’t have to miss my meetings at all. I immediately signed on and within minutes had joined the LessMeeting meeting space. Even better, my calls had been double booked (go figure!) BUT I was able to follow along with both meetings simultaneously. I got a laugh when I added a couple comments in the collaborative notes and spooked a couple of the attendees.

It was exactly what I needed; I was there in both meetings, without actually being at either. Next time I think I might up the ante and Skype into the meeting as well…Or I may just skip the whole thing and pretend my laptop battery was dead. The point is, it’s a great feeling to have the option when I need it.

What about you? What unusual circumstance have you found yourself using LessMeeting?

How Do You Take Notes?

Fact: Everyone has different styles and preferences for running meetings and taking notes. This is true even within the Less Meeting team.

Some take notes electronically, some go old school with pen & paper, and there are many of us who use some combo in between. My preference is to take notes on printouts or in a notebook with one of my favorite pens. Despite my terrible handwriting, I enjoy the process of physically writing something down and I enjoy drawing pictures/visuals.

Paper Based Inspiration

I am a huge fan of David Seah’s “The Printable CEO” collection. You should take a look at The Printable CEO Series. David focuses on simple, efficient ways, to use well designed templates to help increase your productivity on a daily basis.

David’s “Printable CEO” templates were the source of inspiration for a new feature of LessMeeting: Meeting Minutes Template generator. This printable format for taking meeting minutes will help you organize your notes and even better, is free. As in 100% free, no account needed.

For the meeting minute template generator, we had two primary goals:

• Make it usable – As with everything we do in LessMeeting, we have tried to make this template usable. We focused on the meeting best practices of having an agenda, action items, and space for recording key points and decisions.
• Make it pretty – Everyone likes to have printouts that make them look impressive when you show up for a meeting.

The Meeting Notes Template:

You can access the Meeting Minutes Template generator at:
https://lessmeeting.com/resources/meeting-template.

To use the meting template generator follow these three simple steps:

1. Go to the Meeting Minutes Template Generator and enter your meeting information.
2. Click on the create template button and print out the PDF meeting minute template that is automatically generated.
3. Use your favorite pen to record your meeting notes on your printable meeting minutes.

Here’s the Meeting Minutes Template in Action:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T59JPDnoDQk

Want more than just a basic paper solution? Want to really stand out among your coworkers as someone who has their meetings in order?

Learn more about Less Meeting here.