Scheduling a meeting with one person can feel like a small puzzle. Scheduling a meeting with five to ten people becomes a minor logistics operation. The friction isn’t just “busy calendars.” It’s a predictable collision of overloaded schedules, hybrid work patterns, and constant last-minute change.
Data from Clockwise https://www.getclockwise.com/blog/things-weve-learned-about-meetings-2024 shows that employees at large companies average almost 18 meetings per person per week; for smaller companies it’s about 12 meetings per person per week. That scale effect matters: the more people you need in one room, the higher the chance that calendars are blocked. Throw in how hybrid work has reshaped the meeting behavior and you get a clear picture of the chaos around scheduling meetings.
Traditional process improvement techniques rely on Kaizen events and meetings to capture the current state of a process; getting a handful of SMEs to attend meetings can wreak havoc on a process improvement project. In many cases, meeting chaos derails process improvement projects.
It’s easy to blame scheduling challenges for project attrition; but there is another stronger force at work. Creating the as-is process model is boring and feels like a waste of time for many. People want to be associated with the future state; they want to make improvements. The work of improving a process is dynamic, fun, and rewarding.
People will prioritize improvement efforts and make room in their calendars to be part of a solution – specifically when it affects their contribution and performance.
Today’s process improvement projects need to get working on the future state quickly. Process improvement professionals who incorporate AI tools have learned to use existing information to model the as-is state. AI can bypass the drudgery of endless attempts to schedule meetings and get teams working on improvement instantly.
Get to the improvement work faster with AI Process Mapper.