Appendix E

Murphy's Law at Meetings

 

Murphy's Law states simply that if anything can go wrong, it will. From experience, many would add, of those things that can't possibly go wrong, most will.

Some conference planners go through a “What if…” exercise, imagining all of the dire possibilities. Many expect that Murphy's Law would operate in this effort also: The most potentially devastating occurrence will not be foreseen.

Nevertheless, there really should be a way to help meeting planners and facility staffs more systematically examine the potentials for failure if only to narrow down the event that will remain unforeseen. Following is an aid based on Allen Zoll's (1975) “Reverse Check List for Meeting Planners: What If Any of These 68 Meeting Details Go Awry?” to help meeting planners in such an activity.

I. Site Selection and Arrangements

I:1 Once the hotel and you are committed for dates and rooms, a 3,000-person patriotic convention with marching bands will be booked also. Then maintenance, construction, and painting can be scheduled.

I:2 Stated hotel meeting room capacities will be based on actual usage by Marine Corps drill instructors. For other uses, divide by three.

I:3 Rooms inspected in advance will diminish in size by one-half between selection and use.

I:4 A request for a U-shape table arrangement will be modified to a W-shape to take into account the large columns that have suddenly appeared.

I:5 Divisible large rooms with guaranteed soundproof partitions will be none of these.

I:6 The phrase “comfortable, stackable chairs” will be contradictory. Metal folding chairs will appear.

I:7 When all advance preparations have been worked out perfectly, sleeping rooms will be overbooked.

I:8 Priorities assigned in the final booking of rooms will vary inversely with the length of time arrangements were made ahead.

II. Materials

II:1 Materials essential for preconference preparation will not be received by participants. When received, the materials will not be read.

II:2 Materials shipped ahead to yourself at the hotel will be returned since you are not registered.

II:3 When inadvertently kept, advance materials may be stored in the pastry pantry of the annex kitchen. You will know for sure when the person with the key arrives at work the day of the conference start.

II:4 Materials taken as baggage for safekeeping will be transshipped.

II:5 In transit, prepunched holes will heal, clear printing will fade, collated materials will regroup, and felt pens will cast off their tops.

II:6 Handouts will be 10 percent short.

II:7 Pages four and five of the key handout will be missing.

III. Prearrangements

III:1 Meeting rooms with seating, name cards, handouts, and displays arranged the night before will disappear.

III:2 There will be an inverse relation between the popularity of a concurrent meeting and the size of the room scheduled for it.

III:3 In any random seating arrangement, the highest status persons present will be seated at the table legs.

III:4 After subgroups have been formed and pretyped, persons named Clair, Pat, Ollie, Leslie, Jean, Marion, and Will will be the opposite gender from whatever you assumed.

IV. Program Scheduling

IV:1 The necessity for program changes will increase as the date approaches. The final surge will coincide with the printed program delivery.

IV:2 All five-minute business meetings called between functions will last 40 minutes.

IV:3 Restarting the program after breaks will be delayed from 10 to 30 minutes without bulldozers.

V. Communications

V:1 Letters left at the front desk for participants to receive at Sunday check-in will be placed in mailboxes on the following Thursday.

V:2 The meeting schedule, when posted at all in the lobby, will be correct within one hour of the starting and ending times. Organizational abbreviations will be creative.

V:3 Three groups with similar names will be booked with your conference. This assures that one-third of your group will be elsewhere and one-third of those present should be elsewhere.

V:4 As soon as the front desk, the assistant manager, the catering office, and the bell captain all clearly understand your urgent needs, the shift will change.

VI. Ventilation and Temperature

VI:1 Ventilation and temperature controls will be part of the room décor and not meant to be functional.

VI:2 The ventilation system capability will vary inversely to the number of smokers multiplied by the number of militant nonsmokers.

VI:3 The mean temperature of meeting rooms will be ideal. The range will present constant problems.

VII. Guest Speakers

VII:1 The more simple a switch in speakers appears, the further its complications will extend.

VII:2 Speakers with horse topics will have to be shifted to later in the program; those with cart topics will be glad to be scheduled earlier.

VII:3 A reasonable number of speakers will report to the chain's other hotel across town.

VII:4 The bar will generally be popular as the site for final preparation by the speakers.

VII:5 The substitute for the keynote speaker will send a substitute. His profuse apologies will highlight his presentation.

VII:6 Two of your speakers will bring a talk prepared for another occasion. One will present his anyway; the other will speak extempore for an hour.

VII:7 Three of the speakers will use the same involved humorous anecdote to begin their talks. The varying degrees of off-colorness will be only mildly interesting.

VII:8 The availability of copy service will be inverse to the speaker's need for it.

VII:9 If there are X places set at the head table, X plus three important people will arrive to sit there.

VII:10 The occasions when two people arise to introduce the speaker will be balanced by the occasions when no one does.

VIII. Refreshments and Meals

VIII:1 Refreshments will arrive at a critical point in the speaker's talk or just before or after lunch.

VIII:2 Coffee service will be incorrect by a factor of two or one-half; bills for service will reflect the higher error factor.

VIII:3 Refreshments arriving on time and containing the correct mixture of coffee, tea, and soft drinks will have been sent to your sleeping room.

VIII:4 For religious or dietary reasons, or for reasons of custom, cottage cheese and lettuce will be the only universally unrestricted food. One-half of the group will not be able to abide cottage cheese.

VIII:5 One-half of the group will mention that there is not enough food. The other half will observe that there is too much. All will complain that they are gaining weight.

VIII:6 Table seating arrangements for meals will not take into account that shoulder width tends to be broader than width at the knees for seated persons.

VIII:7 Meal functions at round tables further immediate, involved discussion. They are always two butter plates and salads short.

VIII:8 Some will not be finished with dessert when it's time to begin the afterdinner program. But some will not have been served the entrée, either.

VIII:9 The postmeal activity of the serving staff will provide an interesting alternative for those not captivated by the planned programs.

IX. Audiovisual

IX:1 The PA system in use in adjoining rooms will be piped into your meeting room as a convenience.

IX:2 Room lighting controls will be found in the pantry behind the kitchen.

IX:3 The light switches will also control the outlet where the audiovisual equipment is plugged in.

IX:4 Wall outlets will lack the third hole for the grounding pin for all audiovisual equipment. The bellperson, sent for adapters or wire cutters, will report on return that the hardware store is closed.

IX:5 Electrical cords not taped down to floors will add interest (and sometimes a few laughs) to sessions.

IX:6 Extension cords will be two and one-half feet too short.

IX:7 Borrowed audiovisual equipment will add interest because of their intrinsic value as collector's items.

IX:8 Spare bulbs for audiovisual equipment will malfunction.

IX:9 The projector lens focal length will be in inverse relation to the length of the room.

IX:10 The ideal location for the screen will be just under the one light remaining on when the room is darkened.

IX:11 Visual aids used in the hotel's mirror room will provide psychedelic effects.

IX:12 Films received at the last minute before showing will not have been rewound.

IX:13 A film that has been correctly cleaned, inspected, rewound, threaded, and introduced will break.

IX:14 Film cans clearly marked “Management Controls” will contain a film on spot welding. Somewhere in circulation is a vice-versa set.

IX:15 Take-up reels will be two-thirds the size of the film reel.

IX:16 Bedspreads and sheets, when used as emergency projection screens, will produce an interesting effect—floral patterns even more so.

IX:17 Podiums will be the ideal height and focal distance for the average speaker. The average speaker will be unable to attend.

IX:18 The amplification system will fail during the talk of the least forceful speaker and be repaired during the talk of the most.

IX:19 Unstable flipchart legs and chalkboard stands will be conversation pieces.

IX:20 There will be no organizational connection at the hotel for suppliers of chalkboards, chalk, and erasers.