Relative Meeting Cost
Written by Andrew Gibson
Story points are sometimes used as part of Agile Estimation. Story points are like Fiat money in that they have no intrinsic value. The value of a story point is only meaningful when comparing the relative size of work. The practice has fallen out of favour in recent years and the current vogue is for #NoEstimates.
When arranging meetings, it’s sometimes useful to have a way to quickly gauge the cost of a meeting. A rule of thumb is more useful than an exact measurement as it enables us to calculate on the fly. A relative measure is useful as it avoids guessing a monetary value of peoples’ time.
The disruption caused by a meeting is often more than simply the length of the meeting. I find it more helpful to estimate the fraction of the day disrupted and use the following scale:
I then multiply these relative “meeting points” by the number of participants to arrive at a cost.
The “Cost” figure is relatively meaningless other than for relative sizing. But, we can draw some rough generalisations:
⚠ (15+) Expensive: Once a week / Highly important
❗(30+) Very expensive: Rarely / Extreme importance
I advise companies to avoid regular meetings costing 20 or more, or to limit them to once per week. Meetings costing 30 or more should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
This is simply a rule of thumb / heuristic to use as a thought experiment when thinking about the cost of meetings. Using minutes x people is also useful. But remember that a 15 minute meeting probably takes a 30 minute chunk out of someone’s day. And, truly engaging with a meeting lasting more than 3 hours will absorb most of the focus available for the day.
