What Would You Say You Do Here?
A ModernOps Series: Episode 1
Recurring meetings are killing your project margin, and almost nobody is measuring it.
According to the London School of Economics, unproductive meetings cost US professionals an estimated $259 billion a year, and 46% of meeting time is considered unproductive by the people sitting in it.
Yikes. The ERP space is no exception.
6 people in a meeting
1 talking
2 multitasking
3 wondering why it wasn't an email
Sound familiar?
That's not collaboration. That's overhead with a calendar invite.
The math is uncomfortable.
On a 9-month BC implementation. One PM and two consultants in a standing weekly 60-minute customer meeting at $250 an hour. That's roughly $27,000 billed.
Add the standing 30-minute internal prep meeting and you're north of $40,000. Some of that lands on the customer invoice and erodes trust over time. The rest hits your bench as unbillable overhead. Either way, margin is leaking.
Now multiply that by every active project in your portfolio.
My pet peeve.
Recurring meetings with a pre-fixed agenda. Status touchpoints are fine if they stay short and PM-to-PM. Everything else needs to clear two bars before it goes on the calendar:
There is an actionable, prioritized outcome.
Roles are clearly defined so we know the owner of the outcome.
That's it. If a meeting can't pass those two, it isn't a meeting. It's a tradition.
Then apply RACI to every project meeting:
Responsible runs the meeting
Accountable owns the outcome and comes prepared to execute (one person)
Consulted contributes async, usually does not need to be in the room
Informed does NOT attend
This is what Discipline looks like in the EDGE Framework. Hold the line and budgets get healthier, decisions move faster, and the same conversation stops happening four times.
The real question.
The one the Bobs from Office Space would ask: for every name on that recurring invite, what would you say they DO here?
If you can't answer it, neither can they. Take them off the invite.
That's WTH is happening to your margin.
What's the most people you've seen in a single project meeting? Mine is 14. Trust me, NOT my meeting. And it was ridiculous.
Let’s Elevate. DGM.