5 Tips How To Improve Your Project Meetings
Sunday, May 31, 2020, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
As a Project Manager, you have many meetings during the course of the project. Many times, you’d have weekly meetings.
However, not everyone likes meetings that are held on regular basis. At times, meetings become boring and are not very result-oriented.
On occasions, some team members might show some displeasure with holding meetings with no apparent reason. Many dislike meetings that drag on and on.
Your job as Project Manager is to make meetings focused, highly driven and to add a sense of purpose. If you do this, then you’ll boost team motivation and morale.
Here are 5 tips to help you how to improve project meetings:
Improve Your Project Meetings
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Plan ahead and plan wisely
To make sure you get the most out of your meetings, you need to plan ahead and plan wisely. Prior to each meeting, write down at least 3 goals that you want from the meeting.
Here are some examples:
- I want the team to know we’re right on schedule
- I want the team to raise any issues or risks without postponing them
- I want the team members to feel valued and motivated
Once you write down your 3 goals, you need to work out and determine how you’re going to achieve your goals.
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Open and close meetings carefully
It has been said that the beginning and end of the meetings are most memorable and people remember them more than the middle of the meeting.
When you open the meeting, you as Project Manager should tell your team members what the purpose of the meeting is, what you want to get out of it and why it’s important. This should get their attention.
When you close the meeting, tell them what has been agreed and achieved in the meeting and the next steps going forward.
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Control the conversation during meetings
Without being a control freak, you need to be in complete control of the meeting at all times. You must ensure that:
- The meeting follows the agenda that you’ve set forth
- You never get stuck on a single issue else you might waste time
- Just one member of the team doesn’t dominate it
- Everyone has their say one by one
Stand or sit in a place where everyone can see and hear you. When people talk too long, it’s your job to jump in politely but strongly. Always watch, listen and direct team members but don’t overdo it.
If possible, ask someone else to record the minutes of the meeting. This should give you the time needed to control the conversation so that the agenda and your 3 goals are met.
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Let go unrelated issues
Whenever you think an unrelated single issue is consuming the majority of the meeting time, interrupt and tell the team to move on.
Take a note of the issue and address it with the relevant team members separately after the meeting. This keeps your meetings short and focused.
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Keep it action-oriented
You as Project Manager should be concerned about how best to bring the project to a successful ending. Therefore, make sure that wherever and whenever possible, every discussion should result in an action to be completed. Focusing on the actions that are needed is a great way of reducing the length of meetings.
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This column is © copyright to www.Method123.com and originally appeared in their weekly project management tip newsletter.
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