MEASURING MEETING ROI --- OR ROO

There’s much being said these days about measuring ROI (Return on Investment) in our industry. Applying those measurements specifically to meetings can get pretty confusing. A recent letter to a trade magazine maintained that the only way to measure meeting ROI is to charge admission --- that ROI is strictly quantitative and meetings are, by nature, qualitative.

Narrowly speaking, the writer has a point. ROI measurement has traditionally been a quantitative measure. Nevertheless, there are ways to adapt ROI measurement approaches to meetings. A quick visit to the MPI website (www.MPIweb.org) will give you a great deal of information on this subject.

We are now hearing from proponents of ROO (Return on Objectives) measurement that it’s all a question of semantics. They say substituting the word Objectives for Investment makes more sense when dealing with the intangible results of meetings. One can definitely measure success once objectives --- tangible or intangible --- have been set.

Although dollars have become the measure of all things in the business world it is more realistic to admit that not everything can be translated to that common denominator. There are times when the gyrations people go through to convert everything to a monetary measurement are specious at best. Nevertheless, once meaningful objectives are set for any process --- including meetings --- success can be measured. It’s just a question of creating appropriate evaluations for those specific objectives.

Business language can obscure what we are really trying to do. It would be better if we just said what we mean --- and measuring Return on Objectives says it best.

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