Weekly meetings with the project team will help review project progression and any new or outstanding items in the project register, risk register or action item plan.
The Project Touchpoint Meeting template is used to document and communicate notes for all project meetings. The minutes should also capture the agenda, action items, decisions made in the meeting, who attended the meeting and the scheduling of the next meeting.
Overview
One of the most valuable tools you have as a project manager/team lead is a weekly project status meeting with the resources assigned to the team.
Project classified as PM-Standard should hold weekly touchpoint meetings. Projects classified as PM-Lite were multiple team members and/or departments are involved.should hold at least bi-weekly touchpoint meetings,
These status meetings help:
- The new project members develop as a team.
- Help the project manager identify weaknesses early enough to make corrections.
- Help the project manager, reinforce key points and provide early coaching.
When leading a project you should have a good understanding of the status of the project before the meeting. The focus of the meeting is a tool to help you move the project along, coach team members on key issues that can affect deliverables and provide a communication channel to all team members.
Prepare for the Meeting
Prepare for every project status meeting by checking with each of your key project team members before the meeting as there should be no surprises during the project status meeting.
There are several different ways to prepare
- Review Project Schedule:Review the project plan/task list and identify all tasks in progress, to be started or completed within the next 2-4 weeks. Creating a two week forward view is a method used for planning the work and working the plan. This extracted view should be produced and sent to the team ahead of the meeting. If you don’t know the status of a critical part of the project that affects other tasks find out before the meeting
- Identify the bottlenecks: Part of the role of the project manager/team lead is to identify and develop options to eliminate bottlenecks. Knowing those potential bottlenecks before a meeting will help guide the meeting.
- Prepare a list of key points: Go into the meeting with a list of key points to discuss with the entire team or an individual. Lead by example. Your preparedness transfers over to the team and will reinforce the need for each member to be prepared for status meetings.
- Prepare a list of Action Items/Issues: Go into the meeting with a list of the high priority action items/issues to review. You will not have time in the meeting to go through all project action items. Again if possible send the action item list out to the team ahead of the meeting and expect them to come to the meeting prepared to discuss.
- Send out an email requesting some details prior to the meeting: This will save time during the meeting. See Team Touchpoint Email Template.
Use a standard meeting agenda
Follow the recommended Weekly Team Touchpoint Agenda and modify as required.
Consider these key points when you’re planning and holding your project status meetings:
- Start meetings on time.
- Keep meetings to one hour or less – target to be done by 30 minutes.
- Set the expectations upfront re: time limits on agenda items and stress the intent of the meeting is to identify and not resolve issues/action items.
- Know where the project pressure points are before the meeting.
- Always know where the current bottlenecks are and how to clear them.
- Use status meetings to help reinforce accountability.
- Critique the team as a whole. Reinforce individual team members in the meeting, but critique individuals in separate sessions.
- Use separate sessions to solve big issues.
- Be aware of the team’s productivity and time. Cover issues that aren’t important for the entire team in separate sessions with those who need to be involved.
Always send out meeting results
Follow up each meeting with a quick correspondence that reviews important points of the meeting and lists specific action items that were identified.
- Publish the meeting minutes in the project binder in TDX under communication/Team touchpoints and send out an email to the team to review.
- Update any action items and Issues identified in the meeting in TDX.
Bibliography
Sisco, M. (2002, 06 20). Effective status meetings lead to successful projects. Retrieved from TechRepublic: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/effective-status-meetings-lead-to-successful-projects/