I attended a meeting today about startups and their challenges. In the middle of the meeting, there was a game in which each group (every 3 people make a group) had to solve a problem. But what was that problem? it was related to the Meeting Time, Scheduling.

---

Our challenge was planning a time to hold a meeting in a company that had branches in different parts of the world. The goal was to schedule the meeting in such a way that it would be as convenient as possible for the employees of that company to participate in it. This means that the time of the meeting should be set in such a way that employees can attend at reasonable hours (office hours or close to the allowed overtime limits) from their time zone. Therefore, the cost of the meeting will be minimized. But what are those cities!? In the table below, you can see the names of these cities along with the time difference and time zone.

City	Time zone
Washington DC	-5
Rio de Janeiro	-3
London	0
Johannesburg	+2
Mumbai	+5

What is challenging in schedule meeting for different time zone! Unfortunately, the maximum difference between time zones for all employees is 10 hours, which is more than the actual working time (8 hours). Therefore, we cannot organize the session during working hours.

First Scenario

After some talking and listening, we agreed that 9:00 AM would be preferred for employee in Washington DC the meeting time would be as shown in the table below:

City	Time zone
Washington DC	9:00
Rio de Janeiro	9+(5-3) = 11:00
London	9+(5-0) = 14:00
Johannesburg	9+(5+2) = 16:00
Mumbai	9+(5+5) = 19:00

Note: Every employee attends the meeting during working hours, except the employee related to the city of Mumbai, OMG!

It is clear that the Mumbai Employee has to make sacrifices. But note that for the rest of time, the meeting is during business hours, and this can reduce the cost of holding the meeting.

Second Scenario

But now let’s reverse the situation. The program should be held on Mumbai employee’s preference. And assume that the meeting will last hour. Therefore, the meeting should start at 16:00 in the Mumbai time zone. In this way, the meeting schedule is as follows:

City	Time zone
Washington DC	16-(5+5) = 6:00
Rio de Janeiro	16-(5+3) = 8:00
London	16-(5-0) = 11:00
Johannesburg	16-(5-2) = 13:00
Mumbai	16:00

In this case, the staff of Washington DC and Rio de Janeiro made sacrifices. But pay attention to that all the rests have the meeting time on working time.

Considering that two participants are in the meeting outside office hours, the cost of holding the meeting in this scenario may be higher than the first scenario.

But the issue may be that “the boss lives in Washington DC and he must be present at the meeting”. What will happen in this case?

Third Scenario

We may consider another scenario for this challenge and assume the priority for each employee. The most important employees are residents of London and Rio de Janeiro.

In this case, we may consider the best and most reasonable time for them in the early hours of the morning.

So, the meeting time may change to a new table as shown below.

City	Time zone
Washington DC	7:00
Rio do Janeiro	7+(5-3) = 9:00
London	7+(5-0) = 12:00
Johannesburg	7+(5+2) = 14:00
Mumbai	7+(5+5) = 17:00

The fee in this case may be considered only for the employees in Washington DC and Mumbai and the rest will attend the meeting during business hours.

Statistical Approach

I am a statistician and by the way and have statistical thinking and inference. I might identify two outliers in time zones for Washington DC and Mumba, So I put these employees out of the company meeting and meet the Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and London employees.

Amazing ha! So, the problem is now very simplified and easy to solve and the schedule for the meeting is as you can see:  

City	Time zone
Washington DC	–
Rio do Janeiro	9:00
London	9+3 = 12:00
Johannesburg	9+(3+2) = 14:00
Mumbai	–

All done, Great!

Conclusion

Priority and cost for a business meeting without significant work or time may change the plans and create a new challenge for the problem. Remember the rule of Majority, which states the solution must agree with the most, if not all, of them.

But don’t forget: Never, ever use statistical methods for this problem. 🙂