Happy Hump Day!
Today's hint is a rather practical one. As we fast approach the end of the year its time to start doing the planning for 2017. Although we still have another three months of this year to go, the last thing you want is to be caught out on your return to the office in January trying to book in the year's worth of meetings and not being able to secure any meeting rooms! It doesn't matter where you work, I'm sure we all have the same problem worldwide, with trying to book meeting rooms and them never being available. But the solution is simple, start your planning early and you won't have a problem. I have started my 2017 planning and have locked down most of the departmental meetings/rhythm and have done it all by following these simple steps:
1. Make a list of all the regular meetings that occur throughout the year, that come from your bosses calendar. Include the weekly leadership meetings, any team huddles, monthly/quarterly workshops, planning days, listening sessions, team events etc etc. Base this all on what has occurred in the current year. You can review the occurrences and requirement of meetings at a later stage when you review with your boss.
2. Make notes against all the meetings of the rhythm/frequency of each and start to plot out in the calendar around other significant dates/meetings that you are aware of (i.e corporate board meetings, holidays etc).
3. Book your meeting rooms based on the frequency of each of the meetings. For meetings that go offsite, get ahead and start checking availability so you an secure venues early.
4. Review attendees for each meeting and issue invites. For the re-occurring meeting invites, ensure you put an end date on the reoccurrences (whether you just issue 6 months or the whole year) as ongoing meeting series can just end up corrupt and are difficult to deal with when adding/removing attendees.
5. Create a yearly planner in excel and plot out all the meetings that make up your departmental rhythm and sit down and review with the boss. Planning is a key responsibility in our role and this will ensure you tick that very significant box before the new year even begins. Its also a good idea to include special company periods on the planner including mid year and annual review time, public holidays and any corporate board meetings that will impact the departmental rhythm and flow.
6. Issue the planner to the leadership team so they all have visibility of the frequency of the meetings and update it throughout the year and re-issue where required. I like to print it out and pin it up at my desk so its there and easy to glance at when you are asked when the next particular meeting is. Just to note, this planner should only include significant and re-occurring meetings/workshops/events - not your every day meetings (but it is a good idea to include the weekly/fortnightly leadership meeting in it to ensure it doesn't clash with anything thing else of significance).
As I said, its a good idea to get on to this now. It may take some time and its not something that should be left to the last minute. You'll be thanking your lucky stars you booked all those meeting rooms when the new year comes. We all know however, that nothing is ever set in stone, but at least you will have put down some foundations early that can be moved at a later date if need be.
