What are good practices for project/progress meetings?
Henry HattenrathProject Consultant| Tectonic Engineering MSA LLCNew York, Ny, United States
The most critical skills and activities by project managers is communications with the team, stakeholders, contractors, consultants, technical contributors, projects sponsors and funding partners.
In order to maintain project progress, many direct and indirect activities need to be performed and completed effectively and efficiently. Just as important as direct activities on construction projects such as excavation, concrete installation, steel erection, and systems installation, management meetings need to be held and attended in parallel with the more tangible activities.
Most capital projects contain interdependent phases for design and construction. As work progresses there are many types of recurring meetings that will be conducted such as oversight meetings with Owner/funding partners, project schedule meetings, contractor progress meetings, and design phase meetings with consultants, construction phase meetings with contractors.
Meetings are an essential part of management and supervision roles and responsibilities such as monitoring activities, reporting progress, assessing performance, and measuring quality of work. At the meetings, Agenda topics will be discussed, action items will be closed and new actions items will be assigned to project team members. As needed, the Project Manager will escalate and expedite resolution of issues or to obtain management decisions on topics outside the project team authority.
Effective and efficient meetings allow management personnel to spend more time on action items and on direct activities to assure continued progress. Conversely, an imbalance in the frequency of meetings and the time to complete assigned actions will make management less effective on direct and indirect activities. Project managers and the PMO need to find a balanced of process that avoid non-value added activities that detracts staff and takes manhours away from managing the essential deliverables.
Equally important, is properly documenting the discussions at the meetings and indicating the actions required for maintaining progress on direct and indirect activities. Meeting minutes should be concise, identify action items, due dates and assigned party. Critical decisions and approaches for work execution should be agreed upon and recorded for traceability along with appropriate documents that are part of the meeting handouts.
Good Practices for Project/Progress Meetings
• Schedule meetings in advance with a written purpose and Agenda
• Establish meeting times, dates and locations that are recurring on a calendar and that are aligned with PMO reporting periods and oversight meetings
• Provide copies of Agenda and handouts at the meeting and assure invited participants are consistent with the Project Management Plan
• Allow Subject Matter Experts to present deliverables, such as updated project schedules, financial reports, quality documentation, contract administration, and risk management
• Routinely engage participants in discussions and disposition of topics and action items
• Present progress based on specific data dates and consistent with other project reports and metrics
• Introduce new personnel or first time attendees prior to the start of the meeting
• Promptly generate and distribute Meeting Minutes so that action can be undertaken to report progress at the next meeting.
TIP: If the meeting Agenda includes obtaining comments on review of specific documents or making project decisions, the meeting Announcement should conspicuously indicate the expectation and the appropriate documents should be distributed with the Announcement.
Good Practices for Meeting Minutes
• Establish a consistent format for content, numbering and labeling
• Paraphrase discussions and assure actions are specific with due dates and assigned party
• Content should accurately reflect the meetings discussions
• Distribute Meeting Minutes and Handouts to all attendees and all non-attending invited team members
• Transmittal should highlight a summary of participants and assigned action items
• Record any progress made on action items since the meeting and up to issuance of the Minutes
• Rather than names use participant titles, departments or company names for contractors and consultants
TIP: Before distributing Meeting Minutes, check to see if there is any progress on action items since the meeting. As needed, update and distribute the Minutes with a note indicating the content reflects progress since the meeting. Saving Changes...
I did not find this article very helpful. It has all the traditional and theoretical ingredients that most project managers utilize as part of their checklist in conducting meetings. What is lacking is information on real-world soft skills required in conducting a meeting without alienating colleagues, or resources. When should a project manager lead, when should he or she follow, at what point do too many items in the checklist of a project manager make fellow team members feel like the project manager is consuming too much time in the glorification of his or her own tasks? For me good practices in project and program management would definitely include some tips in people management and management of the team's tacit expectations. May be some tips on smooth expectation management of team members as well as clients. How much can the team expect? How much can the client expect? How can we convey these expectations without alienating the enthusiasm and support of the team and the client and while fueling their fire to collaborate in the most productive and mutually beneficial manner?
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2 replies by Henry Hattenrath and Sungjoon Park
Nov 13, 2016 5:36 AM
Sungjoon Park
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Well said, but you might understand the poster's intention to provide general tips for project progress meetings, more likely contractual meetings or formal meetings as a consultant for the design built construction domain. There must be various types of meetings in real world and general practices might also be various based on types of meetings. Your points are valuable but majority of your points is likely on leadership skills or interpersonal skills, effective communications, customer satisfaction, stakeholder engagement etc. not general practices on project progress meeting.
Nov 13, 2016 9:00 AM
Henry Hattenrath
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Arnica
You raised several questions that would be good discussion topics. I am sure there are many texts that can help you derive answers. I would suggest the books-Human Factors in Project Management by Paul C. Dinsmore or the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
Henry
Saving Changes...
Brenda TaylorManager, Portfolio Commercialization| Syneos HealthVernon Hills, United States
Great topic and discussions! Thanks for posting Saving Changes...
I did not find this article very helpful. It has all the traditional and theoretical ingredients that most project managers utilize as part of their checklist in conducting meetings. What is lacking is information on real-world soft skills required in conducting a meeting without alienating colleagues, or resources. When should a project manager lead, when should he or she follow, at what point do too many items in the checklist of a project manager make fellow team members feel like the project manager is consuming too much time in the glorification of his or her own tasks? For me good practices in project and program management would definitely include some tips in people management and management of the team's tacit expectations. May be some tips on smooth expectation management of team members as well as clients. How much can the team expect? How much can the client expect? How can we convey these expectations without alienating the enthusiasm and support of the team and the client and while fueling their fire to collaborate in the most productive and mutually beneficial manner?
Well said, but you might understand the poster's intention to provide general tips for project progress meetings, more likely contractual meetings or formal meetings as a consultant for the design built construction domain. There must be various types of meetings in real world and general practices might also be various based on types of meetings. Your points are valuable but majority of your points is likely on leadership skills or interpersonal skills, effective communications, customer satisfaction, stakeholder engagement etc. not general practices on project progress meeting. Saving Changes...
Adewale Olajide LawalInstrumentation Automation and Control Professional| Nigeria LNGWinnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Thanks ....Very useful tips. Saving Changes...
Henry HattenrathProject Consultant| Tectonic Engineering MSA LLCNew York, Ny, United States
Nov 12, 2016 10:02 PM
Replying to Arnica Dayanandan
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I did not find this article very helpful. It has all the traditional and theoretical ingredients that most project managers utilize as part of their checklist in conducting meetings. What is lacking is information on real-world soft skills required in conducting a meeting without alienating colleagues, or resources. When should a project manager lead, when should he or she follow, at what point do too many items in the checklist of a project manager make fellow team members feel like the project manager is consuming too much time in the glorification of his or her own tasks? For me good practices in project and program management would definitely include some tips in people management and management of the team's tacit expectations. May be some tips on smooth expectation management of team members as well as clients. How much can the team expect? How much can the client expect? How can we convey these expectations without alienating the enthusiasm and support of the team and the client and while fueling their fire to collaborate in the most productive and mutually beneficial manner?
Arnica
You raised several questions that would be good discussion topics. I am sure there are many texts that can help you derive answers. I would suggest the books-Human Factors in Project Management by Paul C. Dinsmore or the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
Henry Saving Changes...
Paul RadulescuBusiness Technology Mgmt| DeHavilland Aircraft of CanadaToronto, Ontario, Canada
I disagree with some of the tips presented.
One should not allow anyone to present deliverables during a meeting. The eventual deliverables are to be distributed in advance, together with the meeting agenda do all participants requiring them.
From the project manager point of view, the status meetings are to collect feedback about the project status. All attendees should prepare for the meeting. If they don't, there's no reason for them to be there. Meetings should focus on decisions, not deliverables.
As a rule of a thumb, if you stay quiet in a meeting, and just listen to what's going on, you should not be there. You can read the minutes of the meeting later. Saving Changes...
