by Robert Ware
Meeting planning from a project management perspective. P
roject managers and project team members, like all busi- ness professionals, attend numerous meetings of various types, purposes and durations. Examples range from sta- tus update meetings, which generally last 30 minutes to an hour and are focused on reporting on the current status of a project, to performance reviews, on the other hand, which last from one to several days.
For project managers, meeting planning falls under the more general domain of project communications management. Meet- ings, like other forms of communication, are evaluated in terms of the degree to which they facilitate the efficient and effective achievement of project objectives. Consequently, the costs associ- ated with holding meetings are weighed against the benefits de- rived from the meetings.
The project manager must consider not just the direct costs of staging the meeting, but also the costs associated with having per- sonnel attend the meeting instead of doing other project-related work.
From this perspective, the importance of properly planning for meetings is clear: poorly planned meetings can be costly endeavors that have a low probability of contributing value to the project. By considering the process from a project management perspective, a planner can weigh the objective costs vs. benefits of a particular
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meeting and its necessity to the group. Meeting Purpose
The first and most important question the project manager must ask is, “What is the purpose of this meeting?” Is the purpose of holding the meeting merely to provide attendees with information, or are the attendees expected to work together to generate new in- formation? Are attendees expected to arrive at key decisions during the meeting, or are they merely gathering information during the meeting for decisions to be made at a later time? Very importantly, meetings themselves are rarely considered to be deliverables, but instead are considered to be venues or systems utilized to produce deliverables (e.g., decisions made, clarification of issues achieved, documents produced, etc.).
Clearly determining the purpose of the meeting often contrib- utes significantly to answering other key questions involved in planning for the meeting, such as the following. 3 Who should attend? 3 Where should the meeting be held? 3 Is remote attendance by teleconferencing or video conferencing needed or appropriate?
3 What documents must be prepared for dissemination? 3 What equipment must be made available (laptops, projection screens, white boards, flip-charts, etc.)?
MIDWEST MEETINGS WINTER 2011
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