Before your next face-to-face meeting, consider these questions...
Jessica Lipnack has put together a great checklist with questions to ask yourself before your next face-to-face meeting so that you don't travel and cause CO2 emissions unless it is absolutely necessary.
- Do you need to have a difficult conversation?
- Do you need to make decisions that depend on interpretation of subtle cues in body language?
- Do you need 8 or 16 hours of continuous work together?
- Do you have to share “things” that would be difficult to experience at a distance, like touring a facility or using a piece of equipment?
- Have you calculated the true cost of the meeting in terms of direct expenses and personal wear-and-tear?
- Have you done a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the meeting’s contribution to CO2 emissions?
- Do you sometimes travel because you like it or get the feeling that you are important for doing so? Is the meeting you’re planning one of those?
- If you do absolutely need face-to-face, could you:
A. Organize a high-end video conference if people have never seen one another?
B. Or, conduct a series of highly organized conference calls over a week’s time? - If you absolutely need face-to-face, are you traveling to the most convenient location for everyone?
- Is everyone attending the meeting essential? Could some call in for part of the meeting?
- If you choose not to travel, can you explain your decision clearly to others?
I will definately start using myself to see how it works.
A next step could be to identify typical meeting scenarions and use the checklist to identify which scenarios that do not require in-person meetings. After that, I'd like to look at how these scenarions can be supported by various communication and collaboration technologies.