Comments on: Board of Directors: Number of Meetings

By: Vijay Anand

Vijay Anand — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 16:05:58 +0000

I agree with Brad.

I think the folks that are disagreeing are forgetting a key aspect here. These are startup companies and not evolved corporates. The difference is that, just like an infant, a startup does require constant looking into. As far as I am concerned, personally, if I was at the helm of the company that is being funded, I would have to know pretty much everyday and by the end of every week how the progress of the company is and where we are heading towards – maybe its just me and my obcession with stats and vitality signs, without which I’d be rolling over sleepless; neverthless to say, they are quite good practices. When you have those numbers in hand anyways, it is not a major task getting them organized and presenting it in front of the board – afterall, What you know is all that the board is asking for. If you are taking a week to put together a spread sheet, either a) You have no idea where the company is heading or b) You are trying to figure out how to manipulate the data to make it look good. Both of those are terribly horrible things to do.

As I said, like watching over an infant, keep watch over it. And as frequent as you can, maybe even get yourself a baby monitor – on hind sight, scratch that analogy. There are too many related events going on in the industry eerily close to that

By: howard Lindzon

howard Lindzon — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:46:31 +0000

very helpful – thabnks

By: Tali Aben

Tali Aben — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:59:25 +0000

Agreed that 8-12 is about right (usually 10, skipping December and July). However, one of the most important points is that board meetings should not be used for mundane updates. Provide the directors material a few days in advance – and directors – read it!
This makes for not only shorter board meetings, but those that are much more effective.

By: Nari Kannan

Nari Kannan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:54:59 +0000

I totally agree with Brad on all of his points. In fact, at my last company (venture-funded) I have seen the monthly meetings (exactly on the same nth day of the week) work very well since you know the calendar for a year upfront. John Shoch of Alloy Ventures did a tremendous job of streamlining what they expected and made it as easy as addressing key elements and preparing the same set of spreadsheets and charts every month. Since different members of the management team were responsible for different sections (like Sales, Technology, Customer Service and Support), once the CEO delegated these, preparing for each board meeting was no more than a couple of hours for each team member.

Most impressive for me is that the structure of the reporting emphasized all aspects of growth – short term (like new prospects generated, prospects converted, etc) to longer term issues such building a solid tech team, putting in place a proper development methodology.

In an early stage, you can get caught up on so many short term fire fights that longer term progress may be neglected. But sometimes concentrating on some intangible longer term issues can set the stage for solid short term gains, although you may not realize it in the beginning. Directors like John Shoch who have respect for these things add incredible value to the management team. Regular board meetings with a proper structure reinforces the need for and progress made along many different fronts!

Good Topic, Brad!

Nari

By: Don Springer

Don Springer — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:24:00 +0000

In the early stage of a company’s life (Series A), I have found the following break-outs of our monthly board meetings to be most effective:
- BOD mtg. following quarter end. Full session including BOD, executive team. This includes a formal board package with writeups by dept. and critical areas of the business. (longest meeting we have).
- BOD meeting after 1st month of new quarter. Short session with BOD members only. Use a one-page company dashboard that highlights/tracks the most meaningful issues by dept./for the company.
- BOD meeting after 2nd month of new quarter. Medium session inluduing BOD members and exec. team. Cover the one-page company dashboard. Provide time to drill-into and discuss a critical strategic item for the company.

This above format allows the board/executive team to get to know eachother well, and see how we all think/deal with the fast-pace needs of our copmany. I also think the formal session once a quarter with a more comprehensive BOD package keeps my team/BOD members more professional and results driven.

By: Ari Newman

Ari Newman — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 17:17:50 +0000

I’ve sat in a number of 3+ hour board meetings where the entire management team does a dog and pony show, telling the board what they think they want to hear so that the exec team can “get back to work”. It does both parties a dis-service. Monthly meetings, with every other one in person seems reasonable for a fast moving start-up that needs to hear from it’s advisors and get external support. As the frequency of the meetings increase, the amount of formal reporting and presenting should decrease. It saves both the company and the board members time. On a related note – I’d love to see you guys share some effective templates and formats for strategic and operational reporting that you have found to be efficient and effective (maybe you have and it’s in the archives?). Consistency in reporting is important as well – finding good mechanisms and formats and sticking to them over at least a 3-6 month period is important. What good is a metric or a chart if the variables change month-to-month?

By: Nathan Dintenfass

Nathan Dintenfass — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:14:33 +0000

I have to agree with Ben — I have seen many cycles get burnt preparing for Board meetings in young companies. Balancing the desire to have everything nicely packaged for the Board with the need to “get on with it” is something that would be worth giving some attention to in the context of this posting. Having hands-on advice and help from a Board on a regular basis seems like a great thing for a young company, but spending a day a month (or more) just pulling together reports doesn’t seem to make sense for anyone involved (and Board members never see all that time being spent, so they aren’t always in a position to understand the implications of having a formal meeting as opposed to an informal catch-up session).

By: Ben Casnocha

Ben Casnocha — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:49:17 +0000

In my experience an entrepreneur’s resistence to such regular meetings (such as 12 a year) is the preparation time of creating the spreadsheets, printing out agendas, thinking about specific topics and order, and the like, not that he doesn’t want to spend a couple hours once a month with helpful board members.

So, it’s important for there to be clear expectations about what the CEO is expected to do in advance of meetings if they happen so regularly.