Last week I got out of the office to see what the human resources field were up to at their annual conference and exhibition. I came across the Advanced Institute of Management Research and had a browse through some of their latest research. One report took my eye – The Importance of Meetings – and I thought yes, this is pretty important for project professionals the world over I wonder what the latest research is?
You can head over to the AIM Research website yourself to read the full report and also here is my synopsis for project management.
The report focused on the importance of meetings in bringing about change. It looks at the likelihood of proposals for change being made based on the type of meeting and how it is conducted. So in our world – project management – we think about those meetings with clients, stakeholders, sponsors and team members where the project manager is ultimately trying to bring about change at various levels. Whilst the report focuses more on strategic change I think the results have a wider impact in the project management field.
The report shared the three key components of meetings;
- Initiation
- Conduct
- Termination
Initiation
The initiation of a meeting straightaway means the removal of someone from their everyday work activities and organisational structures become ‘temporarily suspended’. Meetings bring together different hierarchies of employees, people from different departments, even from different companies (in the case of client projects) and will obviously include interacting with unfamiliar people throughout different stages of the project. Initiation also includes the new structures – or rules – for example setting the agenda and chairing the meeting. Finally there are decisions made about the meeting being ‘opened’ or ‘closed’.
And here are the really interesting insights into the initiation of a meeting. Although the organisational structures are supposed to be suspended are they really when you choose to host the meeting in a specific place, for example if you’re having a client meeting chances are you’re going to do it within your own organisation or at the client’s office – either way, one group already has some advantages if its hosted in a place they’re familiar with. Chances are the meeting will not be totally made up of unfamiliar faces – how many projects have you managed where the client meeting was actually just you versus the entire client project team. Also take the format – open or closed meetings. With a closed meeting its just a select few participants, often senior members – say the steering committee whilst the open meetings will be ones which include participants like the whole project team. We know meetings are used to bring about change – so I wonder just how much change is proposed in a closed meeting – where the project manager and team may not be invited and what the longer term impact of that is.
Looking closer at closed meetings it was noted that these meetings tend to have less formality, shorter agendas, with agendas being sent with little preparation time. The meetings tended to be less structured with attendees themselves driving the agenda discussing the issues they wanted to discuss. These meetings were viewed as an opportunity to be open and frank, places ‘to get blood on the carpet’. The interesting outcome to a closed meeting however was they are not decision making meetings. What tends to happen is the discussions would inevitably lead to an ‘open’ meeting in order to get the decisions made where other wider participants would be invited. So maybe decision making is not all happening behind the steering committee meeting doors but wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall during the frank discussions?
For a project manager conducting an open meeting with a project team its worth highlighting what the research said about these types of meetings. Generally an agenda will be produced and sent out to the team with enough time beforehand. The agenda gives the Chair (the project manager) control over the structure and content of the meeting. If we’re using a meeting to bring about change on our projects or want to make key decisions about the way forward chances are we want lots of constructive and useful discussion between all the attendees. To bring this about, the research showed that the Chair waits until about the third agenda item before instigating the time where discussion is needed to bring about important decisions. In other words they’re controlling and structuring from the outset, making sure that the meeting remains stabilised in what could be potentially a destabilising situation for the team.
In the next blog post I’ll be looking at the conduct in meetings and also meeting termination
Image By Office Now
