Speaking at conferences lately there was such the wide mix of opinions and backgrounds when it came to justifying the cost of attending the conference. The part I found fascinating was how different people at the same event (and also those that chose NOT to come) could perceive the value of the same item so differently.  It made me think about what the reasons are and what to consider in our own work, teams, and organizations.

Recently I was speaking at a number of business analysis and project management conferences. The general target market is those that are in roles of BAs and PMs. There were a handful of managers of teams of BAs, PMs, project management offices and different leadership roles on development, agile, and product teams. But for the most part, these were not the decision-makers. Yet somehow they had convinced their bosses the cost to purchase a ticket and time away from work, and even travel in some cases, was well worth the value they would achieve from the event. So what was that value?

First there was the content and the value proposition of varied subjects in a short amount of time (1 or 2 days). Easier to get different topics in one place than reaching out to different sources to find each topic. These all provide professional development credits that support certifications, which is required for many positions. Others came with the same end goal, but from a different approach: they had limited professional development funds and were trying to maximize the monetary spend. A conference offered more value in a single spend item than some training classes or individual trainers. 

When it came to getting the most value out of the event, this is where things could visibly differ. You can quickly tell by a person’s physical body stance and external actions almost immediately whether they are there with vigor and excitement or simply enjoying the boondoggle.  Those that rushed quickly from session to session you could tell were there to hear what the speakers had to say. Others who struck up conversations in the food lines and asked to join people at their tables were ones you knew were looking for quality connections. In person events especially offer that value to connect directly with speakers, authors, trainers, and more in a space that encourages idea sharing and reflection. Not to mention, sitting at a table at lunch with industry experts who can give you great feedback on ideas can pay for the conference itself in terms of the value you receive and what actions you can be walking away with. Now I know for me, the part that can make these connections work so well, is to do some great analysis work before the event and reach out to others to find out if they are not only attending but will have time to connect. And with the conference so busy in connecting and having quality side conversations, actually asking people for appointment time to grab a coffee or eat lunch together can more target a productive event for you. 

Now as many of those passionate professionals that came to the event, there was just an equal amount, if not more, that chose NOT to come. And in this discussion, I’m going to focus on people who have been before or who are actively known in these conference spaces. This is because they are known to the communities and their lack of presence was noticed. So why not come when you are part of a community that almost expects you to come?

Sure, there were definitely the ones that wanted to be there but had work conflicts. Travel can be cost prohibited to others as there may be professional development budgets, but not travel budgets. And virtual options are now more accepted and widely conducted as teams see what they can learn from simply logging onto a virtual session.

I think sponsors are one of the best groups to look at when reviewing an event for maximum value. Sponsors pay to have a presence. That means they are expecting a certain amount of value in return. Qualified leads and on-site sales can quickly return the cost of attending and travel and more. However, they have to do some serious stakeholder analysis and determine if this is the appropriate audience for their business goals. 

So without simply stating that you need to develop robust business cases for any decisions as that is a given at this point if you’ve talked with me. But let’s consider what else we can proactively do to enhance the positive impacts of any professional development activity. You attend and people offer up LinkedIn connections – do you connect?  Speakers offer follow-up sessions, more materials and free events – do you register and access these? And then what follow-up actions do your team members setup for your own organization?  Do you actually schedule the “de brief” for those that attended? What follow-up actions are there that are captured and tracked? Or my favorite – did you actually ask them to articulate how they were going to return the value of the time and money spent back to your organization? I think this last part is critical and why conference budgets can be cut.

Even I took advantage of an opportunity while speaking.  Take for example the person with a conflict. Now we know the power of virtual events, so why can they not attend virtually?  But take this one step further: this was a speaker who could not attend. So guess what I did – I conferenced him in live into the session. Participants in the session then got a second industry expert to join in and give some insight to start the session. The video call was also recorded and transcribed with AI and then added to the collaborative document from the working session. Now participants had tangible inputs from an industry expert added to their takeaways that wasn’t planned, but was simply added value done in real time. 

It really is that simple – asking how to maximize the value of the opportunities you have already created. Think about creating once and leverage repeatedly. There is so much we can do, but you have to get yours and your teams mindsets to shift to a value-delivery mindset. But this mindset applies well beyond project scopes and into day-to-day activities. Why hide out behind an email, when you can jump on a video call to discuss the topic at hand, address any other issues that arose and develop your relationship even further with a colleague.  Sure the email is simple, but the call gives greater value.

And that’s just it – what are you doing to maximize value from every effort? How are you leveraging one event to drive changes in behavior, excitement for the next event, and build communities? In this case of conferences, having 4x the results and building investments in the future activities is the exact definition of working to deliver valuable long-lasting solutions over a single product (in this case a singular event).