Keeping your Meetings and Teams on Track
To the most seasoned project management veterans, maintaining control of a meeting can be a challenge. At times, meetings turn into working sessions where team members focus solely on solving problems without getting through the agenda. Other times, team members may not be fully engaged in the discussion providing little to no feedback to push the project forward.
What’s the solution? Aggressively demand for control of the meeting? schedule separate status meetings and working sessions? There’s no perfect answer but here are a few tips to ensure your meetings stay on track.
Outline the Objective of the Meeting (Write an Agenda)
This tip is easy and straightforward yet surprisingly under-utilized. Sending the agenda a few days prior to your meeting is a good way to set expectations. If you are in a virtual meeting, start the meeting with the agenda up on the screen to orient the team around the meeting’s goal. If the meeting is in person, re-send the agenda a few minutes before the meeting so it can be top of mind (and inboxes).
Seeing an agenda with the detailed items below helps establish a few things:
1. Meeting amount of time
If there are a lot of items to cover and a limited amount of time to work through it, allocate a specific amount of time to each item. As you progress through the agenda and the team gets stuck discussing a particular item longer than the allotted time, you will have a rough grasp on how much time is left to talk through the rest of the agenda.
2. Accountability:
When tasks or agenda items need specific team member’s attention, put their name next to that task. This way to ensure proper engagement, the tagged team members should be ready to discuss the agenda items associated with them.
Another related tip regarding accountability. Not everyone is going to read your emailed agenda. If there are very important tasks that need a specific team member’s attention, follow up before and a few days after the meeting to help the project progress. The key here is not to overdo it. We don’t want team members to feel like they are being micromanaged. That is a quick way to lose the respect of your team. Find a balance so your team doesn’t feel constantly bombarded yet you are still getting answers on moving the project forward.
3. Prioritizing Agenda Items:
Depending on how big the agenda is and how important agenda items are, list agenda items based on priority/impact/importance. Meetings can drag on and engagement can wane as time passes. Moving priority items to the top of the agenda will help ensure that these items are discussed. Also, putting the higher priority items at the top helps garner the proper level of engagement as engagement typically reduces as the meeting goes on.
4. Detailed Agenda Items:
What agenda item is more helpful between the 2 examples below?
Anna to follow up with Tech Partner X to determine how to replicate global rollout. Anna to present findings to team - due Wed Oct 12
Or
Tech Partner X discussion due by Wed Oct 12
The answer is the first example. Meetings run long. Important follow ups are forgotten. Team members lose interest. Create detailed notes and agenda items so nothing important is missed.
Create Autonomy, But Control the Room
I credit a lot of my project successes to my ability to relate to people. We all know that meetings can feel unnecessary especially when we feel like there isn’t enough time to get our work done.
Acknowledge this. Have some fun in your meetings. For example, talk to your team about:
what they did over the weekend
if they have any vacations planned
what they had for lunch
if there are specific items related to the project that they want to talk about
One of the worst traits a project manager can have is to be too focused on policies and procedures. Lighten up and get to know your team. I guarantee it will pay dividends in the long run.
But keep an eye on the clock! If the meeting starts to run behind, reorient the meeting by speaking up to get the team refocused on the objective.
Finding that balance is key.
Sacrifice and Compromise
Project managers that are too strict and rigid are going to have a tough time succeeding. Sometimes we don't get our way in our meetings. We have a status with a lot to cover and nowhere near enough time to do it. On top of that, team members aren’t focused or are entirely too focused on working on solutions for a specific item when there is too much to cover. What do we do? Fold and give up? Press on and force our team to focus? My answer? Meet in the middle.
If status meetings start to feel like working sessions on a consistent basis, offer up a hybrid approach to ensure that there is enough time to go through status and also time to problem solve. This way, project managers are able to address progressing the project as well as addressing the team's need to find solutions.
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If you are having a tough time keeping control of your meetings I strongly suggest adding these tips to your regiment. You will find that meetings run more smoothly. There is an added layer of accountability and transparency that doesn’t feel forced. Be flexible regarding the flow of the meeting and how you interact with your team members to create a proper level of engagement that will get you results in the long run.