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June 2008	www.infomap.com	Vol. 16, No. 2

Case Study: Web Site Offers Tips and Tools for More Productive Meetings; Dramatically Reduces Calls for Support

By Susan Roswit, Contributing Writer

“How do I create a meeting agenda?” “How do I make sure people follow through on tasks?” “What’s the best way to deal with a person who dominates my meeting?”

Calls about how to run effective meetings were coming in fast and furious to Kathleen Paris, Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Office of Quality Improvement.

“Our faculty and staff,” recalls Kathleen, “were becoming increasingly concerned about making their meetings more efficient and productive. In this electronic age, everything moves faster and we all have more demands on our time. No one wants to sit through meetings that are poorly led and poorly planned.”

As a strategic planning and process improvement consultant emeritus at the University, Kathleen has designed hundreds of meetings. On the one hand, she was pleased that people were seeking her help. On the other hand, many were calling with similar questions, and the volume of calls was eating up a lot of time. She needed a better way to provide faculty and staff with the information they needed.

Keeping the focus on the audience
Kathleen sought—and received—approval to create a Web site that would house advice, tools, and resources for running meetings. She enlisted the help of Les Howles, a senior e-learning consultant in the Department of Academic Technology with a background in instructional design and expertise in web site design.

“My original idea was to provide a laundry list of best practices,” says Kathleen, “but Les suggested using Information Mapping principles to design the site. He believed the user-centric approach employed in Information Mapping would be perfect for this project. Information Mapping focuses on what the audience needs to know, and that’s what this site was all about.”

Kathleen and Les conceptualized the site using Information Mapping techniques, identifying its purpose, audience, and desired results. They determined that the goal was to provide faculty and staff with concrete resources they could use immediately, and they based the site on the most common questions asked about meeting management.

The result: A state-of-the-art venue for learning how to run effective meetings, jointly sponsored by the Office of Quality Improvement and the Office of Human Resource Development. A well-organized home page shows at a glance the available topics, each linked to a clearly written Information Map with additional links to tools, video clips, and other resources. Meeting leaders can quickly and easily find information on everything ranging from how to start and end a meeting on time to how to create a visual record of proceedings.

Praise from all over the world—and 99% fewer calls for help
News about the site traveled fast, and positive feedback came pouring in. “In addition to serving our own campus,” notes Maury Cotter, director of the Office of Quality Improvement, “we frequently hear from people across the country and other nations who have searched the web for help, and appreciated finding such a useful and effective resource.” For Kathleen, the most gratifying news was that participants in the university’s Student Leadership Program consult the website as a ‘virtual advisor.’ “It’s rewarding to know we are helping to teach future leaders,” she says.

After the inception of the Web site, the numerous calls Kathleen was fielding dropped by a dramatic 99%. “But what’s most important,” she contends, “is that the site is helping change our meeting culture—people are paying more attention to starting and ending meetings on time, using flipcharts to document results, and using prioritizing and other tools to make their meetings more efficient.”

"Information Mapping is a different mindset; it changes the way you think."

The power of Information Mapping
Both Kathleen and Les are strong proponents of the Information Mapping method, and both have attended several Information Mapping learning programs.

Les frequently uses the principles in web sites he designs. In revamping the university’s Writing Center site, another popular web resource that is accessed worldwide, he applied Information Mapping principles. “Since the change, we’ve gotten lots of great feedback on how much easier the site is to use,” he says.

Kathleen’s first exposure to the Information Mapping method was a demo showing text before and after Information Mapping techniques were applied. “The difference was startling,” she recalls. She began noticing how instructions on websites were so often poorly organized, with a “mishmash” of information.

“What drew me to Information Mapping is the idea of design based on what people need to know, not on what you want to tell them. It’s this orientation to the audience that I find so appealing.” She is also struck by the “tone” of instructions created using Information Mapping. “So often, instructions sound bossy or didactic. But because of the mental process you go through in Information Mapping, you automatically adopt a different tone, one that is focused on your audience.”

For Kathleen, Information Mapping is “a different mindset; it changes the way you think. It has impacted how I think about all my written work.” She has authored a book due out this summer, called Staying Healthy in Sick Organizations: The Clover Practice™. “I approached this book asking what questions people will have, a technique right out of Information Mapping. The power is in the questions, and Information Mapping asks the right questions.”

Kathleen Paris won the 2007 IMAP Award for “Best Web Application.” We congratulate Kathleen and co-designer Les Howles, and look forward to hearing from them both about future successes. Check out the web site they developed at How to Lead Effective Meetings.

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