© 2006 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.

Lee E. Meadows, PhD.

Professor of Management –Walsh College

Authored: Silent Conspiracy & Silent Suspicion

LeMeadows@comcast.net

Project meeting waste time, money

Recently, I had the honor of being asked to observe the beginning of a new project team that was charged to work on new product development. At the time of my observation, the twenty-seven project team members had only met a couple of times. The project team leader was committed to making sure that this team would be the best compilation of talent to ever assemble in that organization and bring forth a new competitive product in a timely manner.

My role was to observe the two and a half-hour interaction and afterwards offer strategies for making the meeting a super-charged, highly interactive and goal driven event. The project leader wanted strategies that would work fast and be effective for the long haul. Essentially a corporate version of the pharmaceutical industries 'superpill', in spite of the fact that I am a doctor who isn’t licensed write prescriptions. However, my prescribed remedies had little to do with super strategies and everything to do with reinforcing those things that are already true.

Often times, the thing that project leaders fail to realize is that the gathering of expertise inside a corporate setting to work on a specific project is as much about the effective use of that paid talent's contribution to achieving the goals that are important to its long term success. Without asking the question, I speculated on the annual salary of the twenty-seven participants, broke it down to an hourly rate and multiplied it by the two and half hours spent in that meeting.

Essentially the organization spent about thirty thousand dollars for a meeting in which very little was accomplished. So, to save time, I offered observations and strategies during our session.

• Twenty-seven people met in a room without a written agenda. Creating an agenda ahead of time provides a clear focus for discussion and a means for tracking progress.

• The first twenty minutes of the meeting was spent listening to blow-by-blow accounts of the project team leaders’ personal life. It was a therapy session on company time and an abuse of the leaders' role given the fact that the people in the room weren't licensed counselors. Most companies provide a nice benefit plan that allows for the use of therapists. Those issues belong in a therapist office, not the project meeting.

• True participation was limited to the leader completely dominating the flow of conversation, which resulted in several of the participants answering email on their lap-tops and or doodling. One participant spent the duration drawing pictures of horses. He was at least kind enough to place the drawn pictures of the leaders' head on the front of the horse. People join organizations because they want their expertise used.

• The meeting started twenty minutes after the designated starting time. Thirteen members were there and in place waiting for the others. Consequently, the meeting ran past the ending time and forced a number of people to alter their already jammed schedule and roll back the starting times on meetings they may have planned. Naturally when the next project meeting is called, the majority will show up at the unofficial starting time of twenty minutes later than the designated starting time. Start on time and end on time.

Organizational meetings are an essential tool for gathering valuable input, solving problems and making decisions needed to address on-going concerns. It doesn't have to be a painful process that requires a 'superpill' to achieve an end goal. All it requires is the exercise of simple strategies, consistently implemented with an end result in mind.