Together with an FMCG company, we designed a system of routines that allowed us to reduce excessive meetings and focus time on key decisions.

Agility as a driver of exponential growth
Streamlining management is a minimum and necessary requirement to be able to operate in changing and volatile contexts. Among the different elements that make up Agility, the dynamism of processes and routines is essential in order to be able to make the right decisions, at the right time. In this sense, organizations should accurately measure the agility of their management routines, to make the necessary changes that contribute to achieving the desired growth potential.

The problem to solve:

The company’s decision making was seriously delayed and unnecessarily complicated by a weak organization of its routines. As an associated effect, a large part of the staff and decision makers spent many hours in ineffective meetings that reduced their productivity, extended their working hours, eroded engagement and generated added costs.

What we did:

1. Definition of the problem. We detected the need to add agility to the organization of routines so as to make it easier for decisions to be made in a timely manner. Specifically, too many meetings were generated, with many participants, losing focus on strategic business issues -many of them, for example, were used to review results obtained, instead of looking ahead and making decisions-.
2. Opportunity analysis. In our diagnosis, we also found that the interconnection of meetings could be improved, insofar as some topics were addressed in different meetings, while others were not addressed at all. In addition, the planning of meetings was often not the most appropriate for the results of one to serve as input for another.
3. Initial situation mapping. To address an improvement proposal, we first sought to understand each routine in depth, including its objectives, agenda, dynamics, participants, frequency, as well as critical interactions, correlations and general structure.
4. New system design. Based on the opportunities identified and the understanding of the key decisions, we designed a new system of routines that would provide greater intra- and inter-meeting effectiveness to eliminate redundancies and duplications, and ensure that the order and connection between meetings is adequate to accompany business processes.
5. Definition of participants. As part of this transformation, we readjusted the number of collaborators who had to participate in meetings, taking into account the decisions involved in each.
6. Standardization of tools. In addition, we adapted templates and incorporate other tools to help improve the effectiveness of each meeting and record and adequately monitor the agreements reached.

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What was the impact:

• More than 400 meetings per year were eliminated.
• Annual meeting hours for all staff were reduced from 20,000 to 10,000.
• Saved USD 8 million annually in costs related to unnecessary meetings.
• 30% more time was recovered for decision making.
• Talents were refocused on tasks that generated more value.
• All members of the organization earned one hour of time per day.
• As associated results, middle and lower management were empowered to make decisions, agility was increased and the commitment of all staff was strengthened.