Transportation is one of the seven wastes identified in a LEAN office. It is a waste because while you, or anything else, moves from one location to another it’s difficult to create customer value at the same time. Telephone conference calling is one method for reducing transportation waste. But when done poorly it can the value of a meeting beyond any transportation waste savings.
The most common method of conference calling is multiple people sitting in a room with some poor souls conferenced in via a speaker box. This approach can be effective when the meeting objective is one-way communication. Rarely should this be the objective of any meeting, but when it is, this approach works if there is a preset agenda and each speaker takes turn at their monolog.
It's important to remember that speaker boxes pick up the sound of rustling paper much more readily than voices. Plan for everyone to be absolutely still, muting remote locations, and moving each speaker as close to the speaker box as possible.
Perhaps the best solution is to eliminate any "informational" meetings. These tend to be non-value added in their own right. We live in the information age with many more effective ways of delivering content than scheduling a live meeting.
An alternative to using a speaker box is the conference call bridge. Many telecommunication providers offer the capability for all conference call participants to call into a single phone number, each from individual phones.
It’s important that all participants call in from a separate number; even if they are located in the same office. There is a phenomenon in how humans communicate that makes us unable to focus on dialog occurring on a phone at the same time as dialog occurring in a room with multiple people.
Humans are unable to rapidly leap back and forth from: 1) using the visual cues associated with face-to-face dialog, and 2) using the verbal cues associated with a pure phone conversation. The result is poor or missed communications on one side or the other.
A meeting where everyone is a unique participant on a conference call bridge enables clear and focused two-way communication. The sound quality is better, it’s more difficult to be distracted by the local environment, and everyone can participate equally in the dialog as they would in any person-to-person meeting.
Comments