Yesterday during my PhD study time I came across an academic article that asks the question “What’s the best way to schedule a meeting between multiple (more than 2) people?“. Here’s the abstract of the paper:
We conducted laboratory experiments based on small groups (4 to 5 participants) to compare the performance of 4 different mechanisms of meeting scheduling: (a) face-to-face coordination wherein individuals negotiate in person and arrive at a consensus on the timing of the meeting, (b) email as the sole communication medium with no structured support, (c) the calendar-based scheduling mechanism using email, and (d) an automated scheduler. Participants of the experiment were drawn from a university in Hong Kong. The experiment was implemented based on the real task of meeting scheduling among project groups that had to meet several times during a 3-month period to work on their project (regardless of this experiment). Postexperimental surveys were used to assess satisfaction with agreed meeting time and perceived efficiency in coordination. The frequency of scheduling conflicts also was measured. Data analysis indicates that even with higher scheduling conflicts among the group members, participants in general showed more satisfaction with the meeting time reached during the face-to-face meeting and also concurred on the efficiency of face-to-face coordination. Overall, they preferred communication-oriented approaches such as face-to-face coordination over decision-oriented ones such as the automated scheduler. We discuss the result of data analysis from the perspective of cultural implications on meeting scheduling and on virtual process management., from Meeting Scheduling: Face-to-Face, Automatic Scheduler, and Email Based Coordination, published in 2005 in the Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce (Vol 15, No 2, pp.137-159)
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates have the article for sale at US$24 per copy. I think it’s worth spending the money if:
(a) you’re a vendor in this space and want to see the full findings; or
(b) you’re in an organization and want to know best practices to follow.
Categories: Tools & Technologies
Michael Sampson 
Michael, interesting analysis. As you know, I have a long-held perception that a phone call or a face-to-face (that is, walk to their desk) interchange are the two best mechanisms to arrange a meeting. I’ve never been that comfortable with scheduler-based systems or processes, simply because I don’t know whether the other person will be available at the proposed time or not – and to-ing and fro-ing is just so wasteful.
I have 3 thoughts on this.
(1) There will be some meetings where it is a case of this is the time hence please attend / delegate / decline.
(2) And not in any way related to my first comment. My experience is that in enterprises where IM is available 1-1 chat or group chat sessions are generally used to find concensus.
(3) Within your network you generally know who’s freetime data you can trust … beyond it becomes more interesting, beyond the firewall even more so!