How to facilitate a project planning session
How to Run Project Management Team Meetings
Timecodes:
Nothing is worse than a bad or unproductive meeting,
especially on a project.
In this video I'm going to teach you how to run really well
effective and efficient project team meetings.
And if you want to be a Project Ninja,
stay to the end of this video,
'cause I'm going to share with you
how to get your hands on my guide
on top 10 common mistakes project managers make.
Hi, if you're new here, welcome!
My name is Adriana Girdler and you've landed
on the best practical project management channel out there.
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as it helps our community grow.
Now, if you're interested in how to run
really well productive and efficient meetings,
(hands clap) let's get to it!
Identify the type of meeting you're going to have.
This is the first and most important step you can take
to run a really effective
and productive project team meeting.
I see too many times where people don't have any idea
really why they're all there.
Yeah, they may have some sort of agenda,
but it gets off topic really quickly.
The purpose helps you tremendously on how to plan,
prepare, if you need pre-read, who needs to be there.
So really understand, why are you calling this meeting?
What is the purpose?
What are you hoping to get out of it?
Now, for projects,
and definitely within the life cycle of a project,
you have different points in time
where you have different purposes.
But some generic purposes that,
just so that you're aware of, one is brainstorming.
So that is one meeting I do a lot of
when we're trying to get new ideas out there.
So we're trying to figure out some cool concepts,
let's brainstorm and have a brainstorming meeting.
Others could be approval.
We may be at certain points in the project
where things have been created
and I need to get the right people in the room
so we can approve it.
There's a lot of value and quickness
to doing that in a meeting versus on email,
and don't even get me there, on that note.
The other one is resolution.
Resolutions become really important.
When you have a problem and you need to fix it quickly,
creating a meeting and getting the right people in the room
really helps to understand.
So those are a few types of project meetings
that you're going to want to look and implement
within your life cycle of the project,
but understanding the purpose as to why you're calling it
is really critical.
Now, how do you run those meetings?
Those are the next tips,
let's get to it.
So think of running a really effective meeting
and think of it in chunks.
So this first chunk I wanna talk about is prepare and plan.
So now that you know your purpose,
which is really important, that's half your battle,
why am I calling in this meeting,
now prepare and plan for it.
Depending on what kind of meeting you've decided to call,
you may have to have some pre-read.
So you're going to have to organize that.
Or you may need some information from other people
and you need to give them some time for that.
Then you have to send it out.
You also wanna really look at your agenda.
So what are you going to have on your agenda?
How long is your meeting?
Too often I see people try to jam-pack too many things
and there's no way they get through at all.
So I always say less is more.
And if you have kind of an offshoot item off to the side
that if you do have time, you can throw it into your agenda.
But I usually try to stick with three to five things max
depending on how much time I have,
if I have an hour meeting,
and maybe the top three is what I really focus my time on.
And if I have time to do the rest, fantastic,
or I save it for another meeting, whatever that may be.
But really plan and prepare,
think it through, have your agenda.
Send that agenda out, by the way, at least 24,
bare, bare minimum, okay, please don't even do that,
but at least 48 to 72 hours before the meeting.
it really helps people understand.
And another thing that you can do too
is if you don't have the agenda,
what I do in my invites is I always put the purpose,
because you know that right away,
you've already thought, why am I calling this?
So I put the purpose of the meeting
with a little little note, agenda to follow soon.
That ensures that people who get the invite,
they know why they're being invited
and they'll accept it immediately.
Set ground rules.
Now, before we get into this tip,
I want to remind you to stay to the end of this video
because I have that guide for you
and I want to share with you how you can get your hands on
it. Now let's get to this tip of the ground rules.
When you're in the meeting,
it becomes really important
at the beginning of your meeting how you set things up,
and the ground rules of expectations of behavior
is actually one of my things that I love
and I never start a meeting without it,
particularly in the beginning of the framework of a project
when people are just getting to know me
and understanding my style of project management.
Now, what's really cool is I do have a video
on ground rules for meetings.
So if you go to the YouTube search bar
you can check it out.
So why do I do ground rules?
It's really simple.
I find in meetings,
people sometimes try to run away with it,
consciously or unconsciously, who knows,
it depends on their personal agenda.
Sometimes we get into the heart of a topic
and it can kind of go on a little bit longer
and you have some other things you need to talk about too.
And the ground rules becomes an easy way
for you to get everything back on track,
'cause not only are you the project manager,
you're a meeting facilitator and a timekeeper,
and it's your job to kind of
juggle all those balls together up in the air
to ensure that you have a successful
and efficient and productive meeting.
So by doing the ground rules
becomes really important to ensure that.
So some of those ground rules I usually have is,
do I have your permission to time you out?
And what I do with that one
is if a topic is going on,
I just say, hey, a little T,
can we put that on our parking lot
and we'll get back to it later
so I can get everyone back on track?
And again, you can even establish your own ground rules
and maybe even collectively as a group
decide what that may be.
I definitely repeat my ground rules
for the beginning of the meeting,
but once people get to know me
I don't have to do those ground rules anymore
on a project team
because everyone has already agreed to our ways of working.
Encourage participation.
On a project team, it's really easy for individuals
to kind of be in their own lane,
get the silo mentality going on
and just focus on their task.
And so when you're talking about something else
that's not necessarily pertaining to them
and what they're specifically doing, they may zone out.
So it becomes really important
that you ensure your whole team is there,
engaged, participating, listening,
active listening, not on their phone, not on their computer,
or which I really hate, when their camera's off,
'cause you know they're working on something else
if you're doing a virtual meeting.
But it's really important, that participation,
because when you're doing a project,
people need to have an understanding
of holistically what's going on
and you may have some individuals
who may have some really good ideas
who are just maybe not participating
'cause they're not paying attention.
So it's your job to help really pull that out.
And how can you do that?
Well, sometimes when I have meetings
and we want to look at something,
I will ensure and ask, hey everyone,
can you please put your camera on?
Because I want to get permission from you
or approval on something,
and I want to see everybody's in agreement.
That's a nice way to do it.
I may also have share a spreadsheet that we're working on,
put it up on the screen,
and I'll actually ask everyone to hop into the spreadsheet,
'cause I do them on a SharePoint site
so we all have access to it.
And then I see everybody's little name
in the corner of the cell that they're on
and so I know they're participating.
And then I ask some individuals,
so can you read the next one?
What are we dealing with next?
And that's just a nice way,
so you're not doing all the work
but you're ensuring participation,
'cause that really ensures engagement
which is just going to confirm
that everyone is going to be coming out of there
knowing what they have to do.
Stay away from status updates, as much as you can.
So that's my, I guess, that's not really a disclaimer.
But here's the thing.
There are going to be times on a project
you need a status update.
But when you look at status updates
from in a productivity and efficiency perspective,
they are not productive.
They are what we deem, we call it a waste in the system,
as my Lean Six Sigma personality comes out right now.
But it's a balancing act,
because there are times on projects
you really need to have a quick status update
of what's going on with a team and their activities.
It helps with getting that collaboration and participation
and everyone sort of really being involved with the project.
But on the flip side of it,
I've seen too many times where that's all a meeting is,
in fact, the purpose is a status update.
And I'm like, that is a waste of everybody's time!
Do I really wanna be sitting around a room
listening to what Bob, his status update on something?
We have tools and technology for a reason.
There's some really good ones out there.
So I like to have everyone give me
their status update in our project plan.
I have a communication section associated
with all activities and tasks.
I have a way of working with it.
And so that's what they do.
And what's really cool, my Slay Project Management course,
little plug, talks all about that
and will show you how to do it.
So if you want to check that out, you can definitely,
the link to the course is under this video.
But again, I'm digressing, because the whole point is
you want to make sure you're not doing status updates.
People get very frustrated.
They stop coming to your meeting
or they really stop engaging,
and you do not want that.
You want to keep every meeting crisp, clear, purposeful,
so when you call them, people know,
boom, I'm going to be there,
because we know we're getting something done.
That's a sign of a good productive and efficient meeting.
Outline next steps.
The last five minutes of all your meetings,
and this is really important,
outline what everyone agreed to.
I know you may have some meeting notes,
you may have some summaries,
in fact, you may have even recorded the meeting
if it was virtual,
which, by the way, is not my favorite thing to do,
because no one really watches it anyway, to go back to it.
But that all being said, you want to summarize it.
You wanna go, okay, this is what we agreed to.
Martin is doing this, Kelly's doing this,
Paul is doing that.
By the way, that's a real project,
so shout out to you guys, 'cause if you're watching this,
you know who I'm talking to.
But that being said, (chuckles) I'm digressing now,
is to wrap it up with next steps.
With everyone in the room
it just really solidifies everything.
And if you've been doing your due diligence,
you've probably have been capturing some meeting notes
in your OneNote or with whatever tool that you use
and you're going to immediately send it out to the team.
So you have that verbal qualification
and check that you did in the meeting,
but you also have the written communication
afterwards as well.
Now that you know how to run
a real effective project team meeting,
oh, this!
You gotta get this.
Underneath this video there's a link just for you.
It's my gift to you,
'cause I want you to be successful,
and you have to understand
what those top 10 project mistakes are
so you can avoid them.
Till the next video,
I'll see you later,
and don't forget, grab this.
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