“Does anyone have a dongle?”
The most prepared person in any meeting is the project manager. Whether we need to project a deck in that one weird conference room without an HDMI cable, or whether our creative review turns into a brainstorm requiring multi-colored stickies and dry erase markers, we come prepared.
I first put my “PM Pouch” (as my coworkers refer to it) together about two years ago, and it has proven one of my most commonly used project management tools (coming in a close third behind well-timed jokes and bringing snacks to meetings). Nothing stalls a meeting worse than managing an A/V nightmare, leaving the room to retrieve forgotten supplies, or waiting for a file to upload only to realize it’s above the storage limit on even Hightail.
While she started out quite small, my trusty PM Pouch is now nearly bursting at the seams. Below you will find a list of some of the most handy items I carry with me to meetings:
Extra pens
Sharpies
Multiple packs of sticky notes
HDMI Airplay dongle (labeled with my name just in case it grows legs)
HDMI cable (just a small one!)
USB drive x 2 (for large file transfer - don’t ask me why I have two…)
Screen cleaner (in case the boss comes peeking around your screen)
Sticky note with the office manager’s phone number in case even my dongle and HDMI cable fail us and we can’t project
Although my PM Pouch isn’t going to save us from a zombie apocalypse, I’m fairly confident it will save us from a lot of the little inefficiencies that eat away at the time we spend with our teams.
What’s in your bag? What are your go-to meeting supplies?
