Every week, How to Manage a Camel reprints an article from the latest edition of Project Management Tipoffs, our highly competitive & popular newsletter. The September issue, released Thursday, concentrates on what Project Managers need to know about the emerging green sector. This week is our monthly edition of Q&A, where we answer your pm-related questions. To subscribe to the leading newsletter on project management issues and news, click here.
I work in a business that demands project team members work at various locations around the country. Travel is inherent in both my work and theirs, and fuel costs are a way of life. We do hold meetings once a month, but I feel the weight of greening up my project bearing down, and want to make the right move. Is it justifiable to scrap our in-person monthly meetings for a structured teleconference instead? Will I see negative effects on the project as a result of such an alteration? – Nina, Todmorden
Nina, thanks for your question. Virtual team working has become something of the norm in recent years and as a result of that organisations are always on the look out for new ways of communicating. Projects rely heavily on communication to get the job done and it does have its difficulties if face to face communication is scrapped altogether. I think most people would agree that teleconferences are not as effective as the face to face meeting, especially when difficult decision making needs to take place at certain points throughout the project. I wouldn’t scrap the monthly meeting but I would think about who needs to be in attendance. I think we’ve all been invited to meetings before and left wondering exactly why you were invited in the first place. This is especially important if teleconferences are going to be used, in place of face to face meetings because the teleconferences will soon become an irritant for some of the people in your team.
I would also think about the possibility of moving monthly meetings to every six weeks and maybe using the meetings alongside other team communication tools. Social media and project management 2.0 is on the increase and these tools enable the project manager to work smarter with their immediate team. Check out Project Management 2.0 and see if this is a viable solution to run alongside traditional methods. The real time approach which can be utilised through social media works very well for teams who find it difficult to keep track of group emails and project plan updates.
Finally, I would think about the objective of each meeting. If the monthly meeting is a status meeting, does this warrant the whole team getting together? The meeting may be useful for the project manager but does the whole team benefit from this? The key to successful communication and therefore successful project outcomes is to find the right balance for your organisation, your project and your team. What works for one project and team may not work for another, especially if project delivery is happening at such a fast pace, rendering the meeting out of date as soon as it has happened.
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