Meeting Preparation in O3PM

Intro – The Pain of Getting Together

Meetings are a core tool of project management. They bring people together, realign priorities, clarify misunderstandings, and keep projects from drifting apart.
It is because while emails, chats, and shared documents are great for many types of communication, they rarely replace the face-to-face (or camera-to-camera) clarity and decision-making momentum that well-held meetings can offer. When done well, meetings become accelerators.

But when done poorly, they become one of the most complained-about aspects of modern work, and deep dark money pits.

And the cost is real. Estimates place annual losses from ineffective meetings between $30 million and $3.7 billion, depending on organization size and scope [Romano 2001].
In addition, U.S. businesses alone reportedly lose $1.85 billion every week on scheduling and rescheduling alone [Eberly 2023]. Managers, meanwhile, spend the majority of their day in meetings, up to 80% of their time [Mintzberg 1973].

But it’s not just about time or money. Bad meetings also cause stress and disengagement. Kauffeld 2012 showed that poor meeting processes are directly linked to reduced team productivity. On the other hand, when meetings are prepared and structured well, they contribute to long-term team performance and organizational success, even years down the road.

In Object-Oriented Project Management (O3PM), we treat meeting preparation as a serious project activity, not a passive calendar appointment.
The good news: This seriousness doesn’t need to be complex. With the right setup, you can streamline preparation, make meetings more useful, and drastically reduce the chaos they sometimes create.

Preparing Meetings the O3PM Way

The Meeting Object

Every meeting in O3PM begins as a file. The file isn’t just a note, it’s a digital twin of the real world object.
In the case of meetings, that object would cover things such as conversations, phone calls, all hands gatherings, or workshops. The defining aspects of meeting objects are that they have a date and involve the exchange of information between at least two people.

Template

To create the digital twin I use the following template (requires templater plugin):

---
tags:
  - act/meeting
date: <% tp.date.now('YYYY-MM-DD') %>
created: <% tp.date.now('YYYY-MM-DD') %>
location: "[[C Videocall]]"
organizer: 
participants:
context:
type:
  - "[[§ Meeting]]"
status: "[[ToDo]]"
---
<%*
let title = tp.file.title;
let title_new = "";
if (title.startsWith('» ')) {
    title = title.replace("» ","");
}
title_new = "» " + tp.date.now('YYYY-MM-DD') + " " + title
await tp.file.rename(title_new)
-%>

Explanation

The metadata block captures essential KPIs from the outset:

date: When the meeting takes place.
location: Where the meeting is held (room, building, or videocall). I like to use links here for search reasons.
organizer: The person leading or facilitating the meeting.
participants: Who’s expected to attend.
context: The wider context or project the meeting belongs to. Can also be thought of as folder.
type: The meeting’s classification (e.g. kickoff, status update, decision round) or just plain old meeting.
status: Current state (ToDo, active, wrapup, DONE, cancelled).
function: The primary purpose of the meeting.

Additional fields like blocked or parts can be added as needed.

Naming Convention

The code block below the frontmatter automatically checks the file title and adds a prefix: "»" followed by today’s date. I then complete the title manually by adding who the meeting was with and what it was about.

This small naming convention pays off big:
The "»" symbol combined with the date makes meetings easy to retrieve on the fly. When I type [[» followed by a date into Obsidian, I instantly see all meetings that happened on that day. No plugin needed, just a structured prefix and smart autocomplete.

Function

Once the file is created, and like with most object classes, I add the primary function of the meeting. It describes the “Why?”

Why does the meeting take place?
Why do I find it necessary to bring multiple people together to discuss a topic, find a solution or be updated?

I always remind myself of this article’s intro. Meetings turn too easily into money-dumps and everyone and their mother suffers from a chronic case of not enough time.
Specifying the function gives the meeting both clarity and context, and helps respecting all the attendees time and energy

Adding Attendees

The next step is to define participants and the organizer. These are linked directly to people objects of the kind [[@ Person]] or at [[@ John Smith]].
I am friend of clear responsibilities and therefore ideally and in most cases only one person should be the meeting organizer. If there is more than one in charge of an object there is the risk of unclear responsibilities which leads to inefficiencies.

Adding the Context and Type

As described in the article Object Definition in O3PM, the context adds a frame to the object, and the same is true for meetings. Is it about a certain building, part of a project, or a new investment? The context should answer these questions.

The type of the meeting is its class or classes such as workshop and / or videocall.

Together with the attendees and the power-tool of backlinks I am able to find meetings through questions like: “I don’t know when the meeting was, but I do know who was there and the object we discussed.”

Setting the Agenda: Structured and Linked

The meeting agenda is put into the note’s body. Here I don’t add bulleted lists or random talking points, but object links.

Each point, major or minor, is introduced via a linked object—be it a deliverable, problem, task or whatever else the vault holds. Under that, the conversation unfolds most of the time in the following format:

## [[Linked Object]]

#### Main Question 1

##### Background

##### Discussion 

##### Result

#### Main Question 2

##### Background

##### Discussion 

##### Result

Thereby each agenda item includes:

A clear question to focus the discussion.
Relevant background, so newcomers or stakeholders can follow. The background helps guide attendees gently into the topic—by offering enough context to engage without confusion. Here are the bare minimum questions the background should answer:
- What is it about?
- Why is it important?
- Why are we discussing it?
Space for discussion notes, if needed. Every argument and counter argument should include the person that made it for tracability.
A result, to ensure decisions are recorded. These can be combined with next steps. If not everybody agrees, note down who doesn’t and why.

This format can be repeated as needed—for as many objects and questions as the meeting requires.

Using the ORM for Participant Check-ins

Meetings are also a great time to check in with participants; not just on the meeting topic, but on other (minor) topics in and outside the meeting’s primary function.

The Object Responsibility Module (ORM) makes this easy. For each participant, you can pull up their current open topics or tasks and include them in the agenda. For a full explanation, practical queries, and ORM principles, check out our dedicated article.
I made it a habit to check the ORM of each attendee before meetings. This ensures that no responsibility falls through the cracks—and that the meeting naturally reinforces object ownership across the team.

An Example

Outro: Smart Setup, Better Outcomes

Meetings don’t have to be chaotic. With a smart setup and a few lean tools, O3PM turns them into focused, traceable, and productive checkpoints. The system helps:

Prepare meetings efficiently with structured metadata.
Keep discussions grounded in linked objects and actual project needs.
Follow a repeatable format that makes outcome tracking easier, increasing team alignment.
Use meetings for ORM-based check-ups.
Reduce the cognitive and organizational overload of scattered meetings.

In short: preparation isn’t overhead. It’s what makes meetings work. And with O3PM, it becomes just another part of the system.

Sources

Key	Citation
Eberly 2023	Ellie Eberly. 16 Eye-Opening Statistics About Time Spent in Meetings (Plus: Best practices for making them more effective). https://www.loom.com/blog/statistics-about-meetings
Kauffeld 2012	Kauffeld, S., & Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2012). Meetings matter: Effects of team meetings on team and organizational success. Small group research, 43(2), 130-158.
Mintzberg 1973	Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work.
Romano 2001	Romano, N. C., & Nunamaker, J. F. (2001, January). Meeting analysis: Findings from research and practice. In Proceedings of the 34th annual Hawaii international conference on system sciences (pp. 13-pp). IEEE.