Organization of the meeting: goals, duration and roles
Meetings in Project Management
No matter how divergent the area of responsibility of project managers of different organizations, it is difficult to imagine their work without meetings. Moreover, the organization of meetings, moderation and facilitation are one of the most important soft skills of project managers.
Meetings occupy an important place in the work of a project manager. Those guys who work on the scrum know exactly how much space they occupy. Often meetings turn into gatherings without a purpose – to be. When five people gather on one side, ten on the other, and circle around the problems posed without a solution at the exit.
Meetings can be
- To transfer tasks to a team
- In order to synchronize the status between project team members
- To open and close the project/project phase (p3express)
- Getting to know the customer
- To accept tasks from the client
- To convey the results of work, discuss the status
- And about a thousand more reasons to meet
To ensure that meetings do not turn out to be a waste of time, there must be rules governing their conduct. They should not be imperative and rigid, they are rather chips that help greatly in the work. The skill of holding meetings is one of the facets of the professionalism of the project manager.
Meeting time
Time in which meetings need to be held, as for scheduling a meeting, I have my own corral, which has become a habit. They come from the goals of the meetings and my own daily routine.
There are only two rules
Meetings held to brief, brief and think are held in the morning
Meetings for the purpose of selling and approving are held in the afternoon. There are also goals without a predetermined goal. It is not clear why they are needed, but from time to time this also happens.
My workday starts at 11 a.m., and the first three hours are the most active phase. When rested, you come to the office, ready to turn the whole world upside down. Attention is concentrated, the brain works well. Therefore, this time should be allocated to the most important, strategic tasks: to find out what the customer needs or to brief the contractor to perform tasks. The briefing goes well with the help of planning the day. This is the most effective time, because it is quite stupid to spend it on gatherings with tea or on swinging in social networks.
After lunch, it does not seem so good - if you noticed, the processes seem to slow down. Work is calmer, and it is much easier to switch attention to yourself with a sudden notification from Facebook. This detail plays well in encounters with mechanical actions – for example, to sell a project or explain to the client why the task was performed the way it was, and not like that. In addition, "as scientists have found out" (c), a well-fed person is more likely to make positive decisions than negative ones. Read D. Kahneman and use it.
Your "active" and not so active phases of the day may be at other times of the day - take this into account when organizing negotiations. It is important that you focus on your phases, and not the team, management or client. You are a manager, and you are responsible for organizing (and partly for the outcome) of the meeting. There are exceptions, in particular, the behavior of interlocutors also needs to be calibrated and taken into account.
Duration of the meeting
According to my own feelings, the duration of meetings should be maintained within the academic hour - 40-45 minutes. After that, it is difficult to concentrate attention and, as a result, the effectiveness of the meeting decreases. If the meeting will obviously take much longer, it is advisable to allocate and schedule time for a break. Like in school.
The best way to control the duration of the meeting is to have a clearly drawn up agenda and follow the meeting plan. For example, if the conversation deviates to the side, it is normal to correct the interlocutors and return to the right track. The worst situation is when the meeting took two hours, but not even half of the meeting plan was discussed.
The second way to control the duration of the meeting is external limiters. For example, in an hour the next meeting. This is announced to the interlocutors, and the meeting time is limited to an hour. When people understand that time is limited and there is a deadline, they act more efficiently.
Roles and behaviors in the meeting
Meeting roles The behavior of the project manager at the meeting depends on the circumstances and purpose of the meeting. There are situations when the manager is a point of contact between the company and the client. In this case, you have an active role in the negotiations. When negotiations take place within the team in the same way, you present and lead the meeting.
In some cases, you will have to connect team members. For example, if we are talking about complex technical things that a particular person was engaged in. In this case, you simply will not be able to close all the issues – especially if the technical team is on the other side.
Whatever format of the meeting takes place, the manager has the role of the manager, the facilitator. The worst thing a project manager can do is to let a meeting run its course, distracted by tasks on other projects and being in his laptop. Also, nothing good ends with the possibility of meetings between the work team and the client without your participation. The project will definitely go the wrong way, and the client will also ask why they need the item "project management" in the estimate.
this article was twice as long, so I split it up so I wouldn't overload it. The second part is devoted to the agenda of the meeting and its summary. Online will appear as usual, next Monday.
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