Every project manager I have met spends a lot of their time in project meetings. And I shan’t rehearse all the arguments about why that time is valuable and how poor meeting practices can erode that value and turn a meeting into a liability. You’ve been there!
So, the important question is, ‘How can you lead excellent project meetings?’
By this, I mean one that delivers real value to everyone who attends and to the organizations that are paying for their time. In this article, I will share my thoughts about how to make your meeting really Zing!
Learn About Leading an Excellent Project Meeting
I like to think of a meeting as a three-act play, with a prologue and an epilogue. And, like a good play, a compelling meeting needs to both follow certain forms, but also innovate and create some drama. Therefore, I have structured this article accordingly…
- Prologue: Before Your Project Meeting
- 1: Starting Your Project Meeting with Character and Motive
- 2: Filling Your Project Meeting with Good Conversations
- 3: Closing Your Project Meetings with a Satisfying Ending
- Epilogue: What Happens After the Project Meeting Closes?
- Bonus: How to Design a Fabulous Project Meeting
- Learn More: More Information
Before we start…
Here’s a video that covers some of the content:
Onwards…
Right. Now you know where you can get more information and dig more deeply into creating fabulous meetings, let’s get started!
Prologue: Before Your Project Meeting
Whether you’re calling the meeting or you are an attendee, always prepare well, so you can use your time to good effect:
- Create or read the agenda
- Read the accompanying papers
- Think about which parts are important to you.
What do you have an opinion on? What do you need to form an opinion on? And what questions do you need to have answered? Bullet-point your own ‘meeting purpose’, and then plan your key contributions.
Creating the Start to a Fabulous Meeting
There are three key preparation steps for a meeting organizer:
- Have an Objective
- Set an agenda in advance
- Invite the right people
We’ll look briefly at each one.
Have an Objective
I would hope that, as a Project Manager, you don’t need this tip. Of course your project meeting will have an objective! But the key is to make sure everyone you invite to the meeting knows it. This will help because they will be better able to:
- Assess whether attending is a good use of their time
- Prepare for the meeting
- Tune in and contribute to it
Set your agenda in advance
There are some project meeting formats that don’t need – and shouldn’t have – an agenda in advance. I used to run a fortnightly top-team project meeting called the Working Group. I’d form the agenda on a whiteboard, while we poured our coffees.
The meeting’s objective was to resolve the most pressing current issues. So our ‘in advance’ agenda was to work through the issues. But we formed the real agenda there and then, so it was completely up-to-date. After listing the topics, we’d vote on priorities then work through them in sequence, until our 90 minutes were up. Five minutes before the end, we’d share out any unresolved issues to work on offline.
But most meetings do need an agenda. And you should issue it in advance. It needs to:
- State the objectives of the meeting
- Set the sequence of discussions
- Note the time and place
- Specify pre-meeting preparation
Invite the right people
I hope this goes without saying. What people often forget is that this doesn’t just mean remembering to invite all the right people. It also means the discipline to only invite the right people. Be ruthless in cutting down the numbers. You will:
- Reduce wasted time at the meeting
- Avoid wasting people’s time, if they don’t need to attend
- Sharpen responsibility among the fewer participants
A Pre-Meeting
Good meetings are efficient. Everyone you need is in one place. So why waste time with a pre-meeting?
Because that’s where decisions really get made. People often decide on the issues before they turn up to the main meeting. They then use that meeting to showcase their posture. So, avoid the risk of your meeting going wrong, by taking or setting the temperature in advance. If there is a pre-meeting, Don’t Miss it!
Prepare to Serve
A good meeting always has someone responsible for making it a good meeting. And they need to serve the participants. If you have called the meeting and will be chairing it, take a look at our article on Servant Leadership, or watch the video below. Then, apply the principles to the way you host your meeting.
Act 1: Starting Your Project Meeting with Character and Motive
Start on Time
Respect the people who are there. Start on time. Don’t wait for the laggards. You don’t know how late they will be, and waiting for them is disrespectful to the people who have arrived on time. I do know one senior manager who retrained his team to arrive on time, by locking the door just before starting.
Note: I am aware it is not as important in some cultures.
Obviously, there could be exceptional circumstances, causing a majority of participants to be held up. But then, rather than waste the time of the few who have turned up, defer the meeting. Or why not ask the people you have present:
‘What could this group best use our time together for?’
You may be surprised by the answer.
By the way, if you are going to impose respect for the start time, you must also be prepared to respect people’s other commitments, and finish on time
…and don’t cancel regular meetings
If you cannot attend, does your regular project meeting go ahead anyway?
It should.
If it does, I’d call it a ‘Project Team Meeting’.
If you cancel a meeting you can’t attend, then I’d call it a ‘Project Manager Meeting’.
Getting to Know You
Never assume everyone knows each other. Unless you are sure, do a round of introductions. If you don’t know everyone in the room, draw a map of the table, in your notebook. Then fill in your map, so you have the names and affiliations of everyone at the table, right in front of you. Knowing people’s names will endear you to them.
Ground Rules
Really? It all feels a bit ‘consultanty’. I prefer to assume we’re all pretty adult, but if there are bad behaviors, I’ll gently remind people not to let themselves down. However, I know that in some cultures, you’ll need to establish a set of ground rules for your project meetings, so here are the sort of things to cover:
- Start promptly after breaks
- If you need to make or take a call, step out
- Only use devices if you are using them for the meeting (like taking notes)
- Listen respectfully and avoid talking over other people
- Be open and honest
- Everyone should participate
- Stay on the present topic
Always start on an up
One reason to avoid setting ground rules unless you have to is the value of getting your project meeting off to a positive start. A great way to start well and lift the mood is to ask about people’s biggest successes since the last meeting. Or maybe what they are grateful for, or most proud of. A quick round of this starts the meeting off with a positive frame.
Act 2: Filling Your Project Meeting with Good Conversations
Meetings are conversations. But what structure is right for the conversation you need to have? Think about which format will work best for each agenda item:
- one-way briefing or lecture
- free-flowing dialogue
- structured debate
- round-robin sharing
Here are some of my favorite tips for getting the best out of those conversations.
Make sure everyone gets to contribute
If you are running a project meeting, it is your responsibility that everyone you invited participates in the conversation. Going into most meetings, you’ll know who the assertive, dominant, talk-about-everything people are. If you don’t, you soon will!
When they start to dominate again, thank them, and then ask to hear from someone else, who does not contribute as readily. Those people have just as many good ideas, and their opinions are equally helpful. So, invite them in, and give them space to be heard. The value of everyone participating is threefold. You get their:
- Engagement – they feel part of the team, and the team feels they are involved
- Commitment – it’s hard to shy away from decisions and plans we have contributed to
- Collective wisdom – more minds mean better solutions and more robust decisions
Create a Positive Culture in Your Meeting
Positive psychology tells us that if positive comments exceed negative ones by a ratio of 5, 4, or even 3 to 1, you’ll get a real boost in the mood of the meeting. Creativity will increase, and people will build on the germ of a good idea, rather than knocking it down.
So, role model the culture of the meeting you want. Rapidly call out any disrespectful behaviors, and celebrate evidence-based and courageous contributions. Build on good ideas and ask for concerns and counter-evidence when one idea seems to dominate. Above all, be generous and supportive, and give recognition for good ideas and supportive behavior.
Try a Two Minute Rule
One way to quash some of the knee-jerk negativity, which we see too often, is to give anyone a minimum of two minutes to make their point before anyone can jump in and challenge it. It compels people to listen and hear the whole point, rather than reacting to their first impression.
Shift the Meeting’s Perspective
Often, the person who leads the meeting can force the conclusions in the direction of their own perspective. This can stifle innovative thinking. Wherever you can, ask questions and withhold your opinions.
Another valuable approach is to ask the meeting about how other stakeholders would react to the conversation. Or what they would say if they were in the room. You’ll get more perspectives, richer solutions, and better decisions.
If you need the meeting to get to a particular result, it is still better to do it by Socratic Questioning, rather than telling people the answer. This is where you ask a series of questions that probe a topic and lead to a full awareness of the issues. This lets the group find the answer for itself. Better yet, you may get an even better answer than the one you thought of! Either way, you’ll get a better conversation with more nuance.
Keep Everyone Cool
Stay alert for the signs of rising emotional temperatures. Then, cool them early, before they have too much heat in them. Ask clarifying or checking questions that move people to become analytical about what they are saying. This will dampen down their emotional responses.
One way to step this up is to label the emotions around the table and ask about them: ‘I see you are becoming agitated; can you tell me what’s triggered that?’
Keep Your Meeting on Track
No one likes it when meetings overrun. To reduce the chance of your meeting slipping, start each part of the meeting by writing the objective on a board. If the meeting goes off track, allow anyone to reassert the objective by pointing it out. And then note the new topic that has started to take over, on a Parking Lot part of the board. Now the group can return to its original topic, and pick up on the parked idea later, if it is genuinely valuable.
How to use a parking lot to avoid getting side-tracked
If someone introduces a peripheral topic to what you are discussing, record it publicly on a board. This often gets the label ‘Parking Lot’. Later in the meeting, assess whether the new topic is important and urgent enough to merit a change in agenda, so you can consider it. If not, at the end of the meeting, review your parking lot items and allocate them to meeting participants, to tackle.
Moving to Close a Topic
Have you ever noticed how many meeting conversations peter out before you reach a conclusion, decision, or action point? Or maybe they just go round in circles, because people:
- just have to say their piece… again!
- want to keep busy while avoiding making a decision.
If this happens, summarize where you have reached, and state clearly what the group needs to do to finish the conversation. At the end of each substantive chunk of discussion, summarize:
- The vital information the group has shared
- Any decisions that you have made
- Actions that people have committed to
- Outstanding issues for later resolution (and the mechanism to resolve)
Write down actions on a board
I like to record actions on a board for everyone to see. And I also like to assign them at the point we agree the action.
Then, kick off again with an invitation to take the next step.
Act 3: Closing Your Project Meetings with a Satisfying Ending
There’s nothing more satisfying than action. Do you end your meeting by confirming ownership of decisions and actions?
You should. Decisions need to be owned by the group, but individuals may assert their opposition. Actions need to be owned by the people who have accepted them.
End your meeting with two rounds, checking for these ownerships.
- First, reaffirm the decisions that the meeting has taken
- Second, firm up on commitments to action. Do a round-robin and ask each person in turn to confirm that they will complete their tasks by the agreed-upon dates. If you don’t get an unambiguous ‘yes’, you have work to do, either before the meeting closes, or in follow-up. Treat anything that is not an unambiguous ‘yes’ as a ‘no’.
The Thorny Problem of AOB
AOB: Any Other Business.
Some people love it as a mechanism for tackling hot topics that have cropped up since you set the agenda, or during the meeting.
Others deprecate AOB as a fix for sloppy agenda-setting.
Whatever your preference, for project meetings, I like to allocate a short slot at the end of my meetings for anyone to ask any questions. I usually constrain the questions to ensure there is real value, by saying something like:
Are there any questions that are best answered by this group of people, here and now, before we all leave?’
This frames them as pressing and important questions that need us all to be there.
I also like to finish early, so people have some time before their next commitment for any one-on-one conversations.
Epilogue: What Happens After the Project Meeting Closes?
You’ve heard of preparation. That’s what we started with, in our prologue. Postparation is also a vital part of every meeting. If the meeting was worth attending, it is worth following up on. Schedule time shortly after the meeting to review your notes, follow-up on actions, and consider what you learned.
You took the time to prepare, so why would you not also make time to postpare?
Follow up
Make a record of the meeting, but keep it short and sweet: ‘minutes for action’:
- Decisions we made
…with implementation steps - Open issues
…and how you propose to take them forward) - Actions listed by person
…with deadlines
Then, crucially, if it’s your meeting, then it’s your responsibility to chase up the actions.
Bonus: How to Design a Fabulous Project Meeting
A lot of my readers with a fair bit of project experience will be thinking:
Been there, done that!’
All these tips assume that your project meeting follows a pretty standard pattern.
But how often do you sit down, in a quiet place, with enough time, and design your project meetings?
What? Design a Project Meeting?
If I said you need to facilitate a two-day workshop, I would expect you to set aside between two and ten days to design and plan it.
It’s important. Maybe 6 to 12 people will commit a couple of days of their time. And the workshop needs to produce results.
But project meetings? They’re just an hour…
90 minutes at most.
But think about it…
Let’s say they are an hour a month.
…or maybe an hour a fortnight.
…or perhaps even an hour a week.
And how long is your project?
Six months?
…a year
…or two?
Let’s Think about an 18-month Project
This is a reasonable average for the sort of business projects I used to run. Maybe it is for you, too.
And I’ll assume you have a modest project team of six people, who meet monthly.
And that each meeting lasts an hour each time…
That’s over 100 staff hours.
That’s about the same as those six people attending a two-day workshop.
For many projects, these numbers are on the low side, so you can substitute your own numbers.
Now do you see what I’m driving at?
Over the course of your #project, why aren’t you putting a couple of days into designing and reviewing your project meetings? Share on XProject Meetings are Conversations
A project meeting is just a series of conversations. Your job then, is to figure out what conversations you’ll need, and then work out how you will ensure that the conversation can flow smoothly and achieve the outcome you need in as efficient a way as possible.
There are three common requirements that all your conversations will need:
- Get the Environment Rght
You need a place and a layout that will suit the type of conversation you need - Provide the Resources You’ll Need
What are the tools for the task, that will ensure productivity is never hampered? - Engage People to Secure Participation
Everyone has a place in the conversation, so if you aren’t drawing contributions from them, you are failing
Conversations for Possibility
These are the conversations you need when your goal is creative thinking, innovation, or problem solving.
- A relaxed and playful environment is ideal
- You’ll need all sorts of paper, boards, coloured pens, samples, and even toys
- Research techniques to generate, multiply, and refine ideas
Conversations for Opportunity
These are analytical conversations that test and validate ideas, and make decisions.
- A more formal environment will encourage rigor and responsibility
- You’ll need access to data sources and a means calculating and testing
- Research analysis and decision-making methods
Conversations for Action
These are conversations where you make progress and get things done.
- Your environment and style need to convey purposefulness. Relaxed enough, so people feel comfortable, but formal enough to remind them of their serious purpose
- You’ll need the tools and materials appropriate to working on the task at hand
- Be clear what role each person has, and what the end result needs to look like
Conversations for Relationships
These are conversations that build and strengthen relationships among team members. They are also the type of conversation where you will relay high-quality information. This must go beyond the simple information that you can as easily transmit by email, Slack, or your collaboration tool.
- Create an environment where people feel comfortable
- This kind of conversation needs less in the way of resources. The most important elements will be any resources that help with assimilating information. Training is an example of this kind of conversation.
- You’ll need to make the information relevant to each person. So, to do that, be clear about its meaning and implications.
Conversations for Ritual
These are the kind of meetings we have because… we have always had them. They don’t serve any real purpose. If they ever did, everyone has forgotten what it was. We now go along to each meeting knowing it will be a waste of our time. And we leave them, realizing that it was, and that we should have had the courage to decline the invitation.
You have two choices if you are responsible for a project meeting that is nothing more than a conversation for ritual:
- Cancel it
- Transform it
Instead, use the time to do something valuable
To be fair, though. These ritual meetings are far more common in the business-as-usual parts of organizations. Projects and project managers tend to maintain a far greater level of focus. But we can all slip up from time to time!
Learn More: More Information
Free Project Meeting Resources
General Videos about Meetings
- Good Meetings don’t Happen by Chance
- 5 Tips for Better Meetings
- How to Run a Great Project Team Meeting
Videos about Specific Meeting Skills
- How to Facilitate a Meeting
- How to Facilitate Productive Project Meetings – with Rich Maltzman
- The Rule of Silence: The Free Source of Power in a Meeting
- Meeting Actions: How to get People to do Them
Guidance on Specific Types of Project Meetings
Sponsor
Kick-off
- Project Kick-off Meeting: How to Make Your Next One a Huge Success
- Agony Angels: Project Kick-off Meeting with Adriana Girdler
Daily
Lessons Learned/Retrospective
- How to Get Your Next Lessons Learned Meeting Right
- Lessons Learned Meeting: How to make it Excellent | Video
A Full Course in Meetings [FREE]
What if you want a whole course in Meetings? I mean, a FREE course that will make you more effective in attending, creating, and leading meetings. And yes, I did say FREE.
- On our Management Courses YouTube channel, we have a free course: Meetings.
- Or, you may find it easier to watch, on our MgmtCourses website.
And with either of them, you can watch the full course, or just dip into the videos you want to watch. Oh, and did I mention… It’s ALL FREE!
Paid Project Meeting Resources
We have two premium courses that can help you with your project meetings.
- How to Get the Most from Your Meetings
- Leading Effective One-on-One Meetings
How to Get the Most from Your Meetings
Advanced Meeting Skills for Project Managers and Professionals who need to Achieve Business Outcomes
Making an impact and getting the outcomes you want is a skill set that all business professionals need. And some of your most valuable time you spend is in meetings. So, getting the most from your meetings is crucial. If you don’t, meetings can easily become a waste of your time, and a showcase for your weaknesses.
This course is designed for business professionals and project managers who need to make their meetings work for them.
- The first half prepares you with a solid grounding in the basics of how meetings work. But it will give you new tips and ideas to set you up for success.
- And the second half puts the focus on you and how you can project executive presence, create impact, and develop gravitas: the authority and trust that puts you at the top of people’s list of who to consult and trust.
Leading Effective One-on-One Meetings
Everything a Project Manager Needs to Know to Maximize the Value of One-on-One Time
Do you need to lead one-on-one meetings in your workplace? If you do, then you will know it is your responsibility to make them comfortable for both of you, and also an effective use of both your time.
But often, project managers take on a role where they need to lead these kinds of meetings, without getting any training
What are Your Tips for Fabulous Project Meetings?
Please share your tips, advice, experiences, or questions in the comments below. I look forward to responding to every contribution.
