Damian PereraMonitoring & Evaluation Specialist| ChrysalisMellawagedara, Western Province, Sri Lanka
If team members say that we don't have time to work as we have too many meetings, is it something wrong with project manager or team members?
Even in agile we find many team meetings such as daily scrum, sprint planning meeting, sprint reviews and retrospectives.
Is there this tension of having too many team meetings in agile teams? If no, what element in agile contributes to reduce this tension? Saving Changes...
Hi, my personal opinion regarding this is how effective for each meeting. I prefer to perceive this topic in this way, we couldn't avoid for organize a number of meetings for synchronization purpose, but the problem is how long should we meet? is the purpose/objective of the meeting clear enough? does the outcome of the each meeting really helps to resolve current issues that we are facing or it just waste bunch of time for debate an unnecessary and most importantly, who should be invited into respective meeting.
Team members tend to complaint for insufficient time to work due to there is lack of confident that the outcome of the meeting really helps the entire situation. Believe me, i had faced a lot of meeting that waste my time especially when the organizer/facilitator unable to ensure the topic of discussion on the right track. As the result, we had wasted the whole morning or work hours to just get a reply from our project lead about "Arh, why nobody understand what i am trying to say".
It's all about trust, really. If people don't trust you, they won't be feeling happier even though you decrease the frequency of meeting. If people don't trust another team member, it is always pointless to organize even one meeting because you won't be able to get active participation (most probably). Saving Changes...
Eric SimmsSenior Program ManagerBaltimore, Maryland, United States
Many PMs use meetings to gather basic information from team members, such as the status of tasks. This is a horrible waste of team members' time. Instead, a PM can gather information from individual team members, analyze it, then disseminate only the relevant information to team members - and this can usually be done electronically. Meetings can then be held only when real-time discussion is required. PMs would find people are more willing to come to their meetings when they know they'll accomplish something meaningful.
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1 reply by Dinah Young
Aug 12, 2018 7:25 AM
Dinah Young
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Totally agree. I did like the team meeting where we go around the table and give status. That is what a status report is for. 5 people + 1 hour of status report = wasted time.
Saving Changes...
Dinah YoungProject Manager / Software Asset Manager| Prince William CountySpringfield, Va, United States
Aug 12, 2018 7:11 AM
Replying to Eric Simms
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Many PMs use meetings to gather basic information from team members, such as the status of tasks. This is a horrible waste of team members' time. Instead, a PM can gather information from individual team members, analyze it, then disseminate only the relevant information to team members - and this can usually be done electronically. Meetings can then be held only when real-time discussion is required. PMs would find people are more willing to come to their meetings when they know they'll accomplish something meaningful.
Totally agree. I did like the team meeting where we go around the table and give status. That is what a status report is for. 5 people + 1 hour of status report = wasted time. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Agreed, we should not simply have meetings for the sake of having meetings. There should be a clear agenda with clear decision points and actions. We should also strive for 30-minutes. But, not all meetings are a waste. There are necessary times to gather as one cohesive unit to determine a course of action.
As far as the scrum meetings mentioned in the OP, those are core to the framework. The point of those is clear, and if done right, negates the need for ad-hoc meetings.
All that said, I am witness to an organization suffocating themselves with meetings. It is actually quite amazing to see, and no one seems to notice the problem even ignoring calls for change. Hours upon hours, completely blowing through the time-limit, paralysis by analysis. The kicker, they are 'Agile'.
I think because for many if not for most PMs getting people into meetings is one of the few things that they can do to try to keep the project on track.
As we know most PMs have no formal authority over the project stakeholders, not even over the project team members, and also many of them don't even understand the technical details of the projects.
When you are in a situation like the one above and you are expected to "deliver" the project your only hope is to get the stakeholders to work together so that they get things done. Getting people into meetings is one of the few "tools" PMs have at their disposal to try to achieve this.
Is this efficient? Depends on the nature of the project issues. If there are communication problems then yes meetings would help. If the project is delayed because of purely technical issues then more meetings would make matters worse as the workers would waste time in meetings rather doing the actual work.
If PMs had had good technical knowledge and formal authority over the project team members then they could have come up with solutions and impose them to the team rather then engaging the team members to come up with solutions. But even so many issues come from outside of the project team and the PM is often powerless to resolve them on his own so he must engage others. Saving Changes...
Yes as Project Manager has to deal with multiple Stakeholders including team.All meetings consumes most of the PMs time. Question is how to make these meeting productive as you cannot avoid it. You may try to reduce in numbers but can not avoid it.
I try to convert these meeting as working sessions as much as possible. If discussing weekly progress with team, lets open the task list and update same time rather postponing it to later. Saving Changes...
1)Yes, The meeting is a tool and techniques for most of 49 processes.
2) With meeting agenda, progress actions, meeting for 10 Min with writing meeting minutes will be fantastic tools and technique to foster actions and duties of project.
BR,
Mansour Saving Changes...
Jesus MartheynProject Manager SR Lvl 2| GlobantMedellin, Antioquia, Colombia
Hi Damian,
In my opinion, meetings are necessary on agile projects just to make sure all the team members are in the same page, mostly when team are on different locations. I work in an agile team and the meetings help us to make agreements and everybody be noticie about it. Of course, meetings must be scheduled, planned, and time boxed. Saving Changes...
At one company, PMs were holding too many meetings and with too many people involved. The practice was rooted in company culture. The problem had to do with old-fashioned, senior management: fear of leaving anyone out who might register a complaint. The fear spread down and across the organization. The need was to differentiate types of stakeholders. When I held meetings with my internal customer and development team, they were thrilled to have meetings that were held only for the time needed and that were attended by the needed stakeholders only. ( Most anyone could be on an Info Only distribution). We had great success. Sometimes company culture is what needs to evolve. Saving Changes...
Henry HattenrathProject Consultant| Tectonic Engineering MSA LLCNew York, Ny, United States
Meetings need a purpose, goal and Agenda, and when held, it is should close more action items than the new actions created. If these four attributes are not planned, the meeting should be canceled. If the meeting is held and the four attributes are not completed, the meeting was a waste of time and should not be repeated. Saving Changes...
