Visualize meeting time

In meetings and workshops employees spend many hours of their time. Even more important that this time is best use and results are achieved.

The reality is rather different. Participants are late, meetings are not started on time, there is much talk around or meeting times are coated mercilessly.

Only 63% start on time

According to a US study participants are on average 5% of the scheduled meeting time too late. On average, 37% of the meetings started late. Does it matter if participants come too late? The study says yes! It has negative consequences for all participants, the waiting and the to-late coming. And worse, it affects just a negative impact on the outcome of the meeting.

Besprechung und Zeit — Quelle: pixabay.de

What could help to improve the situation? I think here there is no simple solution. But an improvement is only possible – based on lean principles – when the actual state is known and visualized.

A proposal in this direction I would like to present the following: Visualize the meeting time!

This sets a clear focus on the time.

Most meetings are using today as a medium a monitor or projector to the conversation. So you also have an ideal medium for visualizing the meeting duration.

All you need is a tool that does the job.

The Workshop Timer

The Workshop Timer is a simple application. It consists of only one executable file wstimer.exe . You can use it on any Windows system. You do not need installation. It stores no entries in Windows settings. You will not be tracked or sent data over the Internet.

Open this file in Explorer with a double click, the timer starts immediately with the default settings (10 min).

Elements of the Workshop timer to visualize meeting time — Elements of the Workshop timer

Adjustments can be done via the context menu. To do this click with the left or right mouse button on the form.

You can set at what percentage the color will change. So you can sharpen the focus of attention.

In this example, after the last 30% of the time the color orange, with the last 10% of the color red. If the time is exceeded, all flashing in red.

visual state of the meeting timer — Color states of the pie chart

Not always it fits visually when an additional window will appear beside the normal meeting application. Therefore, you have the option to hide the window frame in the context menu with the command „Transparent“. The Workshop Timer then lays transparent to the currently active application.