The Woodland Ridge kick-off meeting is about to start, so I wanted to quickly touch base with you. I’ve looked over the questions you submitted after your initial review of the proposals. Based on your input and my experience conducting meetings like this, I’ve planned several topics to cover during the meeting.

During the Meeting
Here’s how I’d like to proceed. I’ll conduct the meeting and ask questions. I’d like you to take notes.

Ultimately in this project, we are being asked to make a recommendation, but we should take our cues from the organization. We need to align our recommendation with what’s important to them. As a result, our main objective in this meeting is to determine how to weigh the options against each other. If all four options turn out to be profitable, how will you decide which option wins out over the others? Let me give you a sense of what I would like you to be listening for. Pay attention to:

• Our client’s goals. What’s driving Woodland Ridge Hospital to make an investment like this? What are their major goals? Do they express any concerns?



• How they prioritize their goals. There may be several things important to our client, but I’ll bet we’ll hear about tradeoffs they are willing to make. Listen for any strong arguments either for or against any of the projects. What information do they cite to support those arguments?

After the Meeting
After the meeting, I’d like you to sit down with your colleagues and compare notes. It is common for each of you to pick up on different things, so make sure you get everyone’s input on the bullets I’ve outlined above. Then I’d like you to create two things:

• First, a prioritized list of the organizations goals and the tradeoffs they are willing to make.

Let me give you an example from a project I worked on. My client was a for-profit hospital who had already employed several major oncologists. They wanted to expand become know as the regional leader in cancer research. Though their number one goal was to be profitable, they needed to create a research environment, which would help them recruit a big name physician to head their oncology department.

They prioritized their goals by saying projects that would make them attractive to high-profile oncologists would be prioritized above others, as long as those projects turned some profit. However, they were not willing to take a loss on a project in order to attract high-profile talent. As you can see, they had goals, but there were tradeoffs they were willing to make. They didn’t have to implement the most profitable project as long as it met their number one goal. Conversely, they would not invest in a project, no matter how attractive it made their organization, unless it turned a profit.

You need to use similar logic here. What does Woodland Ridge Hospital want to do? What can they live with in order to accomplish those goals? What are they willing to give up? What outcome do they have to see?

• Next, for each investment proposal, outline the pros and cons of each proposal. Specifically, think about how each proposals relates to the goals of the organization. How does the proposal help Woodland Ridge fulfill a goal and where does the proposal fall short? Remember you are trying to get a sense of how each project fits to overall mission of the organization.

This is an important step in our project. It’s here we really get to know our client and develop a sense of how to recommend one project ahead of others. I look forward to reviewing your ideas.

See you at the meeting!

Abby

Abigail Vincent
Sr. Consultant
WJL Consulting