Project and Update Meetings Suck

If you've ever worked on a detailed project, or even a simple project, with an overbearing leader, you know what I'm talking about. A major time waster is the regularly scheduled project or update meeting. What's the primary purpose of this type of meeting? Having a collective group of people share information so that each participant knows the overall status or milestones affecting their work. Is it important? Heck, yeah! If you have a milestone that depends on others completing their tasks, and their task orientation has changed in scope or deadline, you need to know about it. It colors everything from your daily work plan to the outcome of the project.

Unfortunately, many of these status meetings simply rehash or confirm what you already know. You know you're in the land of project-meeting abuse if you find yourself thinking, “My report to the group will be the same as last time. Please, not another déjà meeting. I'm on schedule. My team is doing what we said we'd do. Do I really need to be there?”

You may have one of those project managers who feels he or she needs to have a meeting, no matter what, so that it looks like he or she is keeping up. Yup, been there!

Jim Canterucci is an expert in project management and author of Change Project Management: The Next Step and the Amazon.com best-seller Personal Brilliance. Jim points out that the attributes that make project managers successful tend to carry over to the meeting environment. Meeting leadership skills can sell ideas, build coalitions, obtain additional resources, facilitate decision making, obtain objective status reports, communicate project status, and resolve project issues. Your degree of success in all of these areas is significantly affected by how effective—or how boring—the meetings you conduct are!

Jim, thanks for building the case for this book.

Folks, one of the most common problems for project managers is the de facto regularly scheduled and infamous “project meeting.” Alarm bells should go off if even the mere thought crosses your mind, “I wonder if we need this meeting today?” Not only do you struggle for a reason to have it, but you probably struggle to find any resulting action at its conclusion. If you're the project leader, cancel a few regularly scheduled meetings and see whether anyone notices or complains. If that's not an option, then try the following alternatives.

Facilitator SRDs

• The best-revered advice for regular status or project meetings at the same time on the same channel is this: Please, oh please, change the channel. To do that, make a team decision to change your format to a “Two 'n Out” or “Step It Up” meeting style (see Agenda Item 3).
• If you can't use alternative-style meetings all the time, have your “Two 'n Out” two or three weeks of the month; the third and/or fourth week, return to your regularly scheduled program to address the bigger picture.
• Lose your ego and craving for that extra special weekly love. Just let your people do their jobs. You know the ones who need handholding, anyway. Don't feel the need to call a meeting just to have a meeting so others believe you're doing your job.
• Canceling a meeting, however, can't be used as an excuse for communication breakdowns or missed milestones. Keep track of your tasks and the mile-stones reached for each subproject. Keep members informed, using their preferred means to cover progress and milestone accomplishments. Do this, and your people will stay informed and appreciate gaining back an hour otherwise wasted in an unnecessary meeting.
• All team members are certainly capable of providing status updates via SharePoint services, a company intranet page, or a shared folder. Or, use a software based program such as Microsoft Project or Basecamp as mentioned in Agenda Item 2. Need to track the progress of a milestone that affects your status? Go check it. No need to circle the wagons.
• If the project cycle is long, request a written update from each team leader specifically targeting details related to any deviation from the original project plan. These updates allow you to plan or revise your meeting schedules and strategize which people need to attend these meetings.

Attendee SRDs

If you're a regular attendee of your team's update meetings, pay attention to the following tips.

• Explain that you are on target with all milestones and no changes since the last meeting. If all you have are noncritical updates such as “everything is going as planned,” simply provide your meeting host with that information. If you do have questions or critical items to report and need questions answered, then suit up, 'cuz it's meetin' time.
• If the regular meetings are blurring content and depleting energy, suggest alternative meeting types, or implement the “Pass the Buck” style meeting discussed in Agenda Item 3. That allows you to lead the next meeting with renewed energy and focus. From wherever you sit around the table, don't let your meeting suck.

Project and update meetings should focus your team on what needs to be done and keep everyone motivated toward the common goal. Make it about future plans, not past problems. Save those past problem comments for posting in the project team folder—or on the stall door in the bathroom.