Meetings¶

Ineffective meetings waste time. Use these tips to use the team's time productively. If this was a business, each of you costs the company $50+/hr.

See also Meeting Minutes

• Written agenda
  • Creating in advance is always better. Post it on the EDN in the Project Management forum with the meeting date.
  • Define the things that need to be accomplished by the end of the meeting
  • Prioritize the agenda items and budget time as needed
  • On white board if needed
    • (Put a check mark next to a completed agenda topic, so that your CE and PE can quickly figure out which topic you are working on.)
  • Review the status of last meeting action items (as the first topic)
  • Include in meeting minutes in the Project Management forum post
  • Be S.M.A.R.T. !
  • USE this checklist at the start of every meeting: export:template documents/Assessing Meeting Agendas.docx

Please use this Pro Forma Meeting Agenda template for your on-site meetings to help you set up your agendas. This will help you ensure that you cover all the topics helpful to a successful meeting.

• Review attendee list
  • Use on-site time for full group meetings
  • Not everyone needs to, or should, attend all meetings
  • Out of-site meetings should be focused sub-team/sub-system meetings

• Manage by the clock
  • Set time (45 minutes max, 30 minutes preferred)
  • Chose a facilitator to keep team on the clock
  • Wrap up and set action items in final 10 minutes
  • Items not covered carry to next meeting or become action items

• Stay on agenda topics
  • New items/new business need to be shunted aside
  • Set up another meeting with just the necessary participants
  • Set up action items if needed

• Come prepared
  • Treat your teammates’ time seriously
  • Be ready with PPT slides, engineering calculations, graphs, figures, etc...
  • IF not ready, skip the agenda topic

• Take your own notes
  • Make sure you know what you need to do, who you need to work with

Wrap Up¶

• Action items
  • Spell out action items, due dates, and assignees as part of the meeting
  • Post minutes to Project Management Forum with the action items identified
  • Create issues/tasks for the action items ASAP