How Sherpany allows leaders to collaborate prior to formal meetings

Business leaders travel a lot, spending less than half of their time at their company's headquarters¹. This is also the case for Patrick Lardi who sits on the board of real estate businesses from the US, Australia, and Europe. Due to frequent travelling, he had to always carry around board documents in paper to prepare for his meetings. Having no digital access to required documents also makes it more difficult for leaders to collaborate with peers prior to meetings.

Soon he started using our meeting management software. According to Lardi, Sherpany allows for enhanced collaboration before the meeting even starts: he has 24/7 access to all documents from all his different roles and the possibility to discuss important agenda items with more precision. 'Sherpany was the first instrument to make me travel to a formal meeting without physical documents', he recalls. Let us now dive deeper into how collaboration leads to better meetings.

The importance of collaborative agenda-setting

Patrick Lardi knows that preparation is a decisive factor for a meeting to be successful. For every single topic on the agenda, he suggests clearly defining:

• the purpose (e.g. information sharing, discussion, decision)
• main responsibilities (who, what, and when)
• the exact timing of each item

On important matters, he interacts with the chairman and the management prior to the meeting. Sherpany DISCOURS® allows participants to comment on agenda items and to pre-discuss the topics. ‘It is important to prepare all decisions and to get a large support for the benefit of a prompt implementation’, says the Swiss businessman. Lardi sometimes even drafts a first version of the meeting minutes before the meeting starts. This helps him to plan ahead and anticipate the course of a meeting.

Hence, Sherpany allows business leaders like Lardi to prepare meetings in a more agile way, one that is suited for today's reality. Having all information always available on his iPhone and iPad allows him to discuss agenda items. What is more, Sherpany reduces confusion regarding different versions of meeting documents, and last-minute changes. ‘Sherpany allows us to get the right documents to everybody simultaneously’, says Lardi.

Good meeting minutes speed up the implementation of decisions

According to Patrick Lardi, Sherpany not only improved collaborative meeting preparation, but also the handling of meeting minutes. ‘Before, the minutes were often delivered just before the next meeting, which is not really helpful in ensuring prompt action’, says Lardi.

Today, however, the meeting minutes can be delivered almost instantaneously. Our feature Sherpany Minutes® allows meeting participants to review and comment on meeting minutes in an agile way, which avoids the typical time-consuming back and forth loops. Once the minutes are finalised, participants can approve them with one click. This saves valuable group time in meetings and, at the same time, allows for quicker implementation of the decisions.

In short, Sherpany helped Patrick Lardi improve the entire meeting process. Thanks to Sherpany, he was able to:

• increase his individual productivity during meeting preparation, which saves him up to four hours per meeting.
• collaborate in depth with other participants and anticipate discussions, which leads to better decisions.
• get the meeting minutes delivered much sooner, which speeds up the implementation of decisions.

According to Lardi, the C-suite and broader leadership teams would also greatly benefit from an agile meeting culture based on collaboration. ‘I have already introduced Sherpany for our management meetings, and this was one of the biggest changes in my day-to-day life’, says Lardi.

¹ How CEOs Manage Time. Harvard Business Review.