Working through a meeting yesterday, and I came up with the following calculations to help you understand the probability of certain behaviours or actions occurring during a meeting:

Will the meeting be useful?

# of participants / # of decisions needed = X, where X<1 means the meeting is useful.

Will someone fall asleep?

If the (room lighting (in watts) / # of participants) > the room temperature (in farenheit), then someone will fall asleep

Will you leave to get a snack?

If on a conference call, length of call / # of participants = % chance you will leave to get a snack

Will you get stuck with work?

# of senior executives present / # or participants = % chance you will get stuck with work

Is it a colossal waste of time?

(# of “health breaks” + # of courses at lunch) / # of “breakout” sessions = X, where x<1 is an office retreat, x>1 is an association conference, and x=0 is an awards gala.

Will you start considering a new career?

# of windows in meeting room / # of powerpoint slides = X, where x<1 means you start thinking of better things to do.

Will the meeting organizer be mocked?

# of blackberries in room / # of participants = % chance meeting organizer will be mocked during his/her own meeting.

Was the meeting led by a consultant?

% chance meeting was led by a consultant = ((length of meeting) times (# of branded items left at each seat)) / number of times the following words are used (energize, operationalize, low-hanging, offline, priority, “report back,” or brainstorm)

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