Project Meeting Architecture

After a few questions and conversations, the time is right to clarify how ROI for meetings and Meeting Architecture are connected.

The ROI methodology is a methodology and Meeting Architecture is a discipline under construction.
Although there may be people that do ROI for meetings and events for a living and call themselves ROI specialists, a much larger group will use the ROI methodology as part of the jobs. Meeting Architects will be in that group.

Some people will in some case go all the way with ROI and calculate the Return of investment expressed in financial numbers. Most people will use the ROI methodology to set clear and measurable objectives and only measure up to the level of learning (level 2) or the level of application (level 3): What did people do with it? (see picture)

The average Meeting Architect will be working on projects: meetings, conferences, events, sometimes multiple events at once. Just like a meeting planner today works on creating the meeting environment, the Meeting Architect will be working on the design, format, concept and content of the meeting, the project. A lot of this work is planning, booking, etc: operational work. In that sense, the worlds of the meeting planner and Meeting Architect are connect in project management. By nature, Meeting Architects will be more interested in level one, two and a little bit three; this is what they can impact, what they see.

The ROI methodology plays in this operational world too, but part of it goes higher, into the directors, VP’s and C-level world. The manager of a product or department will be much more interested in Application (3) and impact (4). The CFO and CEO will be much more interested in the measured ROI or level 5.

This being said, any Meeting Architect must understand how ROI is generated from meetings and events, and how you calculate it all the way up to level 5. This knowledge is fundamental to good and sustainable design. It is fundamental to the development of objectives, and without objectives, no architect can design a good meeting or event.

In MAP™, the Meeting Architecture Process, these things are interwoven into a practical tool for groups planning to spend substantial resources into a meeting or event. Without going towards impact measurement, let alone the ROI level, MAP™ follows the ROI principles to apply due diligence to meeting design. MAP™ builds on good participants logistics (level 1) and creates the right learning and networking processes (level 2) to support the objectives that were defined based on the desired impact (level 3).

As the designer of MAP™, I can only hope that like the ROI methodology, it one day will become part of the core curriculum of all degree and certification programs in Meeting Architecture.