How many meetings have you been to lately when you were less than prepared than the organizer? Do you attend meetings with little or no explanation other than ‘you have to be there’? We have all been there, trying to navigate the meeting in order to provide a decent response/answer to a question that may or may not be asked.
In the interest of research, I polled clients, consultants, co-workers, business associates, across the Design and Construction industry. A whopping 75% of these folks admit to having been to a meeting in the last two weeks where the agenda was not set, that the topic for the meeting was vague, and that had they known more they could have been (would have been) better prepared.
What this boils down to is a lot of waste and inefficiency. Ineffective planning largely is translated into ineffective meetings. What’s more, there is no shortage of blogs, posts, articles, studies, etc on this topic. Wasted time = wasted money = questionable fees = lower profits. Poor service, poor business, and imagine how frustrating for the team members!
Often times ‘definition-less meetings’ have some shred of value, but what could have been done to salvage the effort? How do we set ourselves up for more successful meetings? Planning and organization!
Plan the Meeting through:
Who are your critical attendees and are they free for the meeting? Does the project schedule dictate timing or does the need for particular participation have greater significance? This is a critical decision for the Project Manager; however, distilling down ‘the need’ should remove doubt. If time is of the essence and team members are having difficulty clearing their schedules, work through and discuss with team members what is expected of the meeting. Perhaps coverage is possible. While we work to attend each meeting, there are scenarios where schedules conflict. It is often better to have the discussion and resolve with the Owner/Client how to achieve a meaningful meeting, with minimal conflict. There are often hidden opportunities to have capable team members cover meetings, expanding their exposure to clients and discussions. Consider your busy schedule an opportunity for others on the team to grow!
Agendas
Reminiscent of grammar school, don’t forget the simple and effective details such as: Who, What, When, Where, and Why
- Who needs to be in the meeting, really?
- What is going to be discussed? What is going to be expected of the attendees?
- When is the meeting scheduled and for how long? How frequently?
- Where is the meeting being held – better yet, where do we ‘anticipate being’ at the end of the meeting?
- Why get together in the first place? Some meetings are simply to check in and report, others have more substance.
An agenda should be carefully thought through, having a method to the meeting. Growing the meeting from one topic to the next, developing the discussion and working towards decisions and/or a defined path forward. Once you have a couple of these under your belt, they should become second nature in planning, and should be distributed to the attendees ahead of the meeting – by a day or two, not within an hour. Who can possibly prep for a meeting in a meaningful way with only moments or limited time to prepare?
So you have your meaningful agenda and it has been sent out to the world for consideration. Now what?
Some further considerations:
Prep the team for better results:
Having attendees know what the purpose of the meeting is will go a long way to having a productive meeting. While professionals who are proficient in their area of expertise can generally ‘wing it’, the value of planning and prepping for meeting is beyond compare. Request that attendees bring pertinent materials, questions, and follow-up to action items.
Start that meeting on-time, literally:
What is the largest calculable misuse of time/fee/profit with respect to meetings? Tardiness. We are all subject to traffic jams, the mass transit debacle, the random oversight of time, but that is not the focus here, what about those ‘chronic time-abusers’? Those who clearly have a more important schedule than the rest of the meeting attendees combined. Why else would they always be late? Identify these productivity sieves and set their portion of the meeting for ‘later’ in the schedule. What about those unfortunate folks stuck in traffic? Thinking on your feet while running a meeting will allow for the shifting of topics to keep things moving along.
Moderator/Mediator:
Keep the meeting interesting for everyone; excuse those who are no longer required in an agenda, manage the discussions, and watch the attendees. Are attendees checking their email? Or worse, playing Angry Birds? Not only is it rude, it means they have ‘checked out’ of the meeting and do not care to participate for themselves or for others. Avoid this by bringing each attendee into the discussion, ‘do you have any concerns for this topic?’
Schedule Breaks:
If a meeting runs longer than 1-1/2 hours, chances are you are at the outer edge of attention spans. With our immediate work-styles, it is near impossible to think that someone can devote extended time in a to a single project. Allow for breaks in the action so that attendees can check-in on other team members, respond to email, make phone calls, use the facilities, or grab a coffee. The more comfortable and focused a meeting attendee, the more of a valuable participant
Get out of the Weeds:
Manage the discussion of a meeting by staying out of the nitty-gritty (aka, doing someone’s work for them). A meeting will spin out of control easily if discussions migrate too deeply into solving the details for a team member. Rolling up the sleeves and crossing a challenge off the list is incredibly satisfying, but was that the intent of the meeting? When running (or attending) a meeting, ask yourself first – does this need to be resolved here and now? Or can the guidelines and pertinent information be shared with the team to allow them to return to their offices and complete the task? Let those consultants do their work on their own time. Why? You are likely already paying them for the effort. If they cannot manage to do so – there may be other issues at hand… Keep in mind with a micro-focused meeting that there is nothing wrong with stating, ‘OK folks, we have beat this to death, let’s move on’.
Track Decisions and Action Items:
Meeting minutes and matrices are our friends. There are often many discussions and decisions in meetings which will evaporate as soon as the team leaves the meeting and the phone rings. Tracking who owns which portion of a deliverable or study will help the team succeed. As a follow up to your meetings circulate this information and then follow-up for a progress report. You may not have a regularly scheduled meeting on the calendar, but in order to assist in propelling the project forward, tracking ownership will help as a tool for assistance to productivity.
A wise man once identified his job title as a PMA – Professional Meeting Attendee. How does he have a full day of meetings AND get all of his work done? It is a challenge. But the most successful of days are those that are planned well with agenda based meetings where the team can ‘get in and get out’ with a concentrated flurry of activity, identifying meaningful discussions which need more time to develop.
Think about your next meeting in terms of a home improvement project, these take planning and focus. When not thought through more time can be spent driving back and forth to the big-home-improvementbox-store than actually completing the project. Communicate – Plan – Schedule – Manage. Think these meetings through, oh, and measure twice and cut once – trust me. Sorry, gotta run to my next meeting…
Cheers!
Christina Pungerchar (LEED AP BD+C ) is a Project Manager at R.G. Vanderweil Engineers in Boston.
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