Meeting TaxiMeter

Have you ever sat in a meeting where:

• the salary cost of participants far outweighs any possible outcome or

• the meeting drags on far over the expected end time.

These are common problems and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that unnecessary meeting cost US businesses $37 billion each year.

"Meeting TaxiMeter" provides a "taxi meter" for meetings and projected yearly costs to help people visualize the real cost of meetings to:

• reduce the number of participants to those who are needed - having one less person in a 2 hour weekly meeting will save about $7000 per year

• reduce the length of the meetings to only want is needed - reducing a weekly 15 person meeting by 10 minutes will save about $7000 per year

The app contains 3 panels:

• Before the meeting you enter the number of participants and their approximate salary, the expected length and frequency of the meeting and any cost (e.g. catering) or time overheads (getting to or from the meeting).

• During the meeting the time and cost so far is displayed with the projected meeting and yearly cost.

• After the meeting, the planned and actual (and variation) for both time and cost for this meeting and for the year is generated. A button click will then insert this into a Word document or Excel worksheet.

Displaying the real cost of meetings will help everyone reduce the waste caused by bloated meetings which run over time.