Status meetings are how project leaders keep their fingers on the pulse. But too often these meetings get sidetracked. Here’s some time-tested advice to get your status meetings — and projects — beating to a unified purpose.
First of all, good call:
- Helps solve problems faster than in writing.
- Motivates team members to work on the project and resolve issues.
- Keeps team members informed about the plans.
- Doesn’t last long.
The overall goal of a status meeting is to help the project manager, team members, stakeholders, and other project participants find out what is going on in the project.
Some status meetings are better than others. Too often, these meetings can be inefficient and ineffective. Team members view them as a waste of precious time that could be better spent doing “the actual work.” This bad vibe can go beyond the meeting, negatively impacting morale, performance and cohesion.
There are some time-tested techniques that project managers can employ to improve their status meetings:
- Prepare a meeting agenda
- A well-run status meeting begins with an informative agenda. It includes a brief description of the items to cover, the time allocated for each item and who will be involved in the discussion. If a key decision is expected, or some other key outcome is desired, include it on the agenda.
- Agenda items inform attendees what will and will not be addressed, which allows them to prepare and actively engage in the meeting.
- Selecting the time spent on each item is also valuable because it gives everyone an idea of the expected discussion length and helps gauge if the meeting is staying on track.
- Sometimes the project manager will be the leader of the entire meeting, but there are cases when certain topics are best covered by others. Naming a point person for each item will help everyone prepare better.
- Define status meeting coverage
- To start, note all people in attendance, all missing and anyone attending as a proxy on behalf of another attendee.
- Reviewing open items. This effectively reviews the previous meeting’s action items but only for items that remain unresolved. Communicate Items that have been closed before the meeting to the team separately.
- Discussion of issues and variances. This addresses current work falling outside of acceptable tolerances versus the plan and requires team input to resolve or agree on a course of action.
- Attending upcoming items. The focus here is on items that are several weeks out but may need attention before they become issues or variances.
- Park irrelevant items. During the meeting, identify any items that are not directly relevant to the discussion and “park” them to avoid derailing the conversation. At the end of the meeting, review the parked items, resolving them by either adding them to the action plan or confirming the subject is now resolved.
- Finally, establish action items. These are any items that require follow-up after the meeting along with an owner and a date for resolution or update. These will form the basis for the review of open items in the next meeting.
Handle all other status-related information outside status meetings and then convey it through regular status reports.
- Choose the proper length
A project manager should be able to report up-to-date information to project sponsors and clients at any time, so status meetings should be conducted regularly. How often depends on several factors such as:
- project complexity;
- size of the team; and
- the level of information required by project sponsors, clients and others.
Status meetings also benefit the entire team by providing a venue to recognize achievements, share information, and bring problems and issues to the team.
- Find a meeting facilitator
Most project managers feel comfortable leading a meeting, but it’s different from facilitating it. A meeting facilitator guides the group toward its goals by focusing on the processes the group will use to achieve desired outcomes. In short, the meeting leader often focuses on the what, while the facilitator focuses on the how. If this role is not delegated, Project managers have to wear both hats.
There are specific facilitation tasks that project managers can perform or delegate to optimize a status meeting:
- Keeping track of time;
- Alerting the team if the discussion gets off topic;
- Documenting action items;
- Developing a parking lot;
- Asking questions of those staying silent;
- Playing devil’s advocate if no one in the group is questioning.
- Don’t get sidetracked
One of the biggest challenges that project managers face during status meetings is staying focused on the key issues. Everyone seems to have a “soap box” issue that they love to discuss in detail, whether it is on the agenda or not. These steal critical time. Even worse, they can interrupt the discussion and resolution of issues on the agenda.
Project managers can try a few simple techniques to help maintain focus during their status meetings:
- Ask someone on the team to “raise a flag” or otherwise point out when the discussion is veering off topic;
- Question if the issue can be taken offline;
- Use an egg timer or similar device to “time box” discussions about issues not on the agenda;
- Redirect the issue to the parking lot;
- Develop ground rules for keeping the group on the topic.
The key to implementing any of these techniques is to surface the potential problem early in the project cycle and identify techniques that the team will support.
In conclusion, Status meetings are how project leaders keep their fingers on the pulse of the project. They are where team members and stakeholders raise, address and resolve issues. They are an indispensable tool in project management. However, they can also waste time and frustrate project participants if they aren’t conducted with purpose and structure.
The good news is that effective and efficient status meetings yield tremendous results. They increase team morale, share timely information, uncover potential risks, provide a forum for discussion, and improve project performance. So, focus on making your status meeting better, and your project’s pulse will be healthier.