![\"dreamstime_m_30675075\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/705173\/dreamstime_m_30675075.jpg\")
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Project Team Meetings are rarely identified as a risk event for a project\u2019s success. Yet, non-productivity during these collaboration sessions is highly probable and can be very costly.<\/p>\n
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The Muse published an infographic based on industry literature from 2013\/20141<\/sup>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These meetings are initiated and attended by knowledgeable, competent people. Resources for how to improve meetings are as easy to find as reading a book or Googling. There are good ideas, but only effective if specifically tailored to your team. Teams are unique due to their set objectives and the individuals that form them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So why do most of these meetings = black hole vacuums of time and productivity?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A project or organizational leader has information that they would like to disseminate, but the host doesn\u2019t always communicate the purpose before or during the meeting, which results in misalignment. Attendees are often left to guess their role, unsure if they should be reviewing material, asking questions, reacting to the data with proposed changes, or unquestionably agreeing with the presenter.<\/p>\n Most people tend to think that their physical presence in a meeting is more important than the overall objective. If attendees are uncertain of or uninterested in the meeting\u2019s purpose, they often become disengaged, filling the percieved \u201cnon-productive\u201d time with other tasks instead.<\/p>\n Many unintended, disrespectful behaviors can manifest in meetings when expectations are unclear. These behaviors can be as simple as arriving late or forgetting to silence a cell phone. Some are more damaging such as interruptions, abrasive communication, or condescending tones.<\/p>\n Attitudes need to change by approaching meetings as Think-Tank collaborative sessions. Considering the monetary sum of the attendees\u2019 hourly rates, each person is paid to be engaged and bring their strengths forward.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Productive meetings can be a challenge. Often, attendees are company leaders or Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who value their time and possess unique communication and working methods. However, many will buy-in to a set of agreed upon guidelines if they are part of the development process. For better accountability, guidelines should always be accessible and visible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Develop guidelines to create a one-page<\/span> Meeting Playbook<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Professional sports team coaches use a Playbook to coordinate the different roles of their team members at their most critical, collaborative timeframe. Why shouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To improve buy-in, meeting playbooks need to be tailored specifically for the team’s unique dynamics. Playbooks should be crafted to ensure the successful completion of the goal for the meeting and the overall project. These are some considerations:<\/p>\n 1. OBJECTIVE<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Determine the meeting\u2019s primary purpose and establish clear goals. Is this an informational update, decision-making session, or brainstorming session? Does a problem need to be solved, or do the appropriate questions need to be generated before solving the problem? Determine the relevant leaders or SMEs required for each meeting.<\/p>\n Per Katzenbach and Smith, \u201cPerformance is the crux of the matter for teams.\u201d2<\/sup> Challenges to completing objectives can be specific to the meeting purpose. Collaborative sessions for developing recommendations versus creating or developing products versus managing systems, products, or other teams will manifest group dynamics.<\/p>\n Ed Catmull, former president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, would arrange the room\u2019s layout and chairs specifically for a meeting\u2019s purpose or to avoid hierarchical positioning that interfered with meeting productivity3<\/sup>.<\/p>\n 2. LOGISTICS<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n Determine the needed frequency, preferred dates and times, and duration of the meetings. Things to keep in consideration are different time zones for virtual team members, varied work shifts, and meeting-free time blocks.<\/p>\n Assign Meeting Leader, Minutes recorder\/writer, and timekeeper responsibilities to assure efficient time management. How are tangent discussions dealt with or \u201cparked?\u201d<\/p>\n Determine the factors for decision making \u2013 what are the constraints for the team? Which decisions need to be forwarded to the project owner or executive?<\/p>\n Create a D\/RACI (Driver\/Responsible, Approver, Contributor, and Informed) matrix to avoid endless campaigning for competing proposals. Include a strategy to resolve stalemates. <\/p>\n 3. MEETING MATERIALS<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n Develop guidelines regarding agenda and meeting material preparation, including proposals and distribution. Define the actions per agenda item, such as updates, feedback requests, or decision making. This will help promote more productive meetings.<\/p>\n Consider distributing materials two days before the meeting if you have non-native English-speaking attendees.<\/p>\n Determine what to include in the Meeting Minutes and length of the document. Develop guidelines for approvals and distribution.<\/p>\n 4. BEHAVIOR<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n Develop guidelines for digital disruptions such as texting, phone calls, e-mails, and working on laptops. Clearly define respectful behavior expectations to avoid miscommunication. With a very diverse work culture, agreement of acceptable behavior is critical to prevent interruptions, condescending or aggressive tones, sarcasm, etc.<\/p>\n Venue changes that affect people\u2019s behaviors can also enforce the Playbook. Stand up, short meetings (usually 15 min or less) are routinely used by teams implementing Agile Project Management methodology to guarantee a focused, prioritized, and succinct meeting4<\/sup>.<\/p>\n 5. MEETING HEALTH CHECK<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n Atlassian, a software development company that shares Team Playbooks and meeting tools online, recommends creating a health checklist, and periodically pulsing the team5<\/sup>. Knowledge alignment of each factor amongst team members is rated with a red, yellow, or green rating. Measured metrics include accountability, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, outlined deliverables, task dependencies, etc. Essentially, the health checklist measures the cohesiveness of a team by measuring agreement on the shared vision. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Time is our most precious resource.<\/span><\/p>\n We have the power to harness effective collaborations in our meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n About the Author:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Melissa is a team-focused Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Project\/ Program Manager harnessing the strengths of stakeholders and resources, leveraging team dynamics into completion of quality driven projects within constraints. She has 20+ years of lab bench work and operations management in various phases of drug development. Melissa’s track record of strategic planning often reducing project duration and material cost up to 20%.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n References:<\/strong><\/p>\n Project Team Meetings are rarely identified as a risk event for a project\u2019s success. Yet, non-productivity during these collaboration sessions is highly probable and can be very costly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"resource-featured-status":[],"resource-type":[819],"class_list":["post-44431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-performance-owners-project-management-project-management-program-management","resource-type-blog"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"mikeviele","author_link":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/blog\/author\/mikeviele\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44431"},{"taxonomy":"resource-featured-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-featured-status?post=44431"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-type?post=44431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
You could have spent more than a month in the Bahamas and be just as productive for the year.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n
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How do we make meetings more productive?<\/span><\/h2>\n
What do you include in the guidelines?<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"AustinMelissa\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/705173\/AustinMelissa.jpg\")
Melissa Austin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n
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