Project Status Meeting

I concur with Sergio on this.
In some cases these status meetings become unbearably inefficient, ineffective, and at times painful. PM should manage time appropriately during status meetings, otherwise team members often become tempted to skip the meeting because they suspect it will be a waste of time and their time will be better spent other ways.

I work very hard to make my meetings crisp and valuable. I became so irritated at unproductive meetings many years ago that I wrote up this based on what I saw in unproductive meetings:

The Productive Meeting Manifesto

- We will not hold meetings for the sake of holding meetings.

- For the meetings that are necessary, we will know what will be discussed and when, so that we can be prepared and present for topics that affect us but not sit through parts that don’t.

- We will provide coverage for our teams when we can’t attend. If a team is not represented, someone will take responsibility to fill in for the missing member on the topic discussed that involves their team. If a key representative of our team cannot attend, we will notify the person scheduling the meeting so that we can reschedule to a time where the meeting can be productive and everyone else can use the time for other productive things.

- We will be prepared to discuss the topic and provide a duration we believe it will take to discuss the topic.

- We will start on time and end on time so we can plan our day and others impacted by our own schedules.

If it merits more discussion than the time allotted, we will not hold everyone else hostage and get together with the people involved to explore deeper.

- We will plan a realistic time to discuss the topic and plan to end each meeting early. There will be overflow sometimes. We WILL NOT hold hostage everyone who was courteous enough to attend for extended discussions.

- We will be courteous in the meeting, try to stay on track, try to remember that not everyone is involved in a deep dive of every topic at hand.

- We will try to respect that the person trying to keep the meeting on track is not disregarding the topic but acknowledging that numerous attendees are not involved in the topic and trying to save the time of everyone attending for their team’s coverage

- Sometimes, being courteous to the meeting attendees involves shutting down a deep dive so as not to interfere with their other obligations.

- We will have fun and remember to respect each other even when we are passionate about something and disagree.

If there is value in having team members attend but they resent the distraction from more productive activity, you could ensure they contribute to the meeting by giving the status of their responsibilities. It may be more efficient if one person (PM e.g.) speaks to the status but the round table approach helps buy-in and accountability.
Ensuring the meeting starts on time and does not over-run tells people that you value their time also. Thanking the team (individually if necessary) for attending despite being busy is also a good idea. Again that is if you feel attendance is the best use of their time!

Dear, first you should share an updated status Agenda prior to your recurrent meeting highlighting those Tasks that are required for progress update; having your prioritized list, buy in those members that are key stakeholders thru an interactive communication; ask for justification for tasks behind schedule, involve their team leaders in all you communications. Then you will make your project status meetings count.