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Team Meetings are a gathering of team members to discuss aspects of the project.  Team pulse meetings focus on status.  Team problem solving meetings focus on problem resolution.

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Quick reference

Team Meeting

Team Meetings are a gathering of team members to discuss aspects of the project.  Team pulse meetings focus on status.  Team problem solving meetings focus on problem resolution.

When to use

If a project has more than one person conducting project work, it will require project team meetings.  These meetings, between project team members, can be face-to-face or virtual.  The frequency and timing of the meetings depends upon the project and the project team.

Project pulse meetings are status meetings that normally occur at set intervals (weekly).  The interval will shorten based upon project risk or urgency.

Project problem-solving meetings only occur when there are issues.

Instructions

Project pulsing meetings are status meetings.  Project Core Team members and other team members as required should attend.  The frequency of these meetings can vary based upon the urgency of the project and whether the project is experiencing a crisis condition.  Normally these meetings occur once or twice a week, but can be as frequent as several times a day.   These meetings should be focused on status updates only.  Team members report what tasks they have finished since the last pulse meeting, what tasks they have started since the last pulse meeting, and identify any issues that require a problem solving meeting.  These meetings are normally less than 15 minutes in duration.

Problem solving meetings are discovery and resolution meetings.  Only the team members who can contribute to the resolution are required to attend.  The focus is to identify the causes of the problem and solve it.  These meetings occur as needed depending upon the problems.  It may take more than one problem solving meeting to resolve an issue.  The meeting duration is based upon the nature of the problem.

  1. The project leader should establish a schedule for regular project pulse meetings that all Core Team members will attend.
  2. If a project is undergoing a crisis or stressful period, the frequency of the meetings can be increased until the crisis is over. 
  3. When an issue is raised in a pulse meeting, or at the request of a project Core Team member, a problem solving meeting is scheduled and those needed to resolve the issue are invited.

Hints & tips

  • Don’t mix the two meetings.  If they will occur sequentially, be clear to call an end to the pulse meeting and let those who do not need to stay for the problem resolution meeting leave.
  • Agendas are not necessary for the pulse meeting since what will be reviewed is what is in the plan for the current pulse. 
  • Agendas are often helpful for problem solving meetings so that those in attendance can come prepared.  These meetings also often have a summary and action items published following the meeting.
  • Large projects often have a “standing” problem solving meeting for the Core Team and invited team members that occurs at the same time every week.  This is because there are often many active problems occurring at the same time.  In these meetings, an agenda and minutes are very beneficial.
  • On large projects, the project leader will be spending the majority of their time conducting problem solving meetings.
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  • 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:06 I'd like to talk with you about project execution and the team meetings,
  • 00:10 that are normally used to manage the work of the project.
  • 00:15 Team meetings are to serve the team.
  • 00:18 The team uses them to help their communication process.
  • 00:21 They're normally the primary meetings of integration with the team members.
  • 00:25 Team meetings discuss the topics that are pertinent to the team decision.
  • 00:28 There're two types of meetings.
  • 00:30 The first one is a status meeting or as I like to refer to them as pulsing meetings.
  • 00:34 The second one is a problem solving meeting with a focus on issue resolution.
  • 00:40 These two can be combined but
  • 00:42 I strongly recommend that you keep them as two separate meetings.
  • 00:46 Let's take a look at the pulsing meeting first.
  • 00:49 Pulsing meetings or team meetings that are used to track project status.
  • 00:53 Because the only track the change in status since the last pulse,
  • 00:57 I believe they can typically be done in less than 15 minutes.
  • 01:00 In fact, even on large projects,
  • 01:02 I've run these meetings on only five to ten minutes.
  • 01:05 If you're meeting weekly you probably only have a few tasks to start and
  • 01:08 end each week.
  • 01:10 The meetings address what has changed since the last pulse meeting.
  • 01:14 What task started, what has completed and based upon that,
  • 01:18 are there any issues that require a problem solving meeting to resolve?
  • 01:21 Are there any issues that have been resolved that we can put to bed now?
  • 01:26 Issue resolution is not part of pulse meetings.
  • 01:28 That will be addressed in a separate meeting where we can have the right
  • 01:31 individuals in attendance and the rest of the team is not held hostage.
  • 01:36 Pulse meetings intentionally get more frequent when a project is under stress.
  • 01:42 Just like your own personal pulse rate increases when you're under stress.
  • 01:45 We start adding daily meetings or twice a day meetings until the crisis or
  • 01:49 stress issue is resolved and we can stretch back out to the normal interval.
  • 01:53 Incidentally, this can be done virtually, they don't have to be done face to face.
  • 02:00 Let's now talk about the problem solving meetings.
  • 02:02 These meetings are just that, solving problems.
  • 02:06 Issues are raised at the policy meeting or
  • 02:09 issues associated with risk triggers are identified.
  • 02:12 Whatever the reason there is an issue on the project that needs to be resolved.
  • 02:16 The project leader convince a portion of the team
  • 02:19 to work on resolving that problem.
  • 02:21 Only the team members who can contribute must attend.
  • 02:24 Of course, any core team member can attend.
  • 02:27 I never tell project team members that they can't come to a problem
  • 02:29 solving meeting.
  • 02:30 But I don't wanna take up time away from those who have nothing
  • 02:34 to contribute when they can be working productively on other project tasks.
  • 02:39 Problem solving meetings will take as long as they need.
  • 02:42 These are not limited to just 15 minutes.
  • 02:45 And sometimes, the problem require several meetings to get to the root cause
  • 02:50 of the problem and determine a resolution.
  • 02:52 I did an informal poll a few years ago with some friends of mine who are project
  • 02:57 managers, and this is what we found.
  • 03:00 60% of our time is being spent managing issues,
  • 03:04 just the little things that are constantly coming up.
  • 03:07 We also spent some time on schedule, risk, budget, roles and responsibilities and
  • 03:12 scope management.
  • 03:14 But most of the time was issue resolution.
  • 03:17 This should not be a surprise to anyone who's a project manager.
  • 03:21 Much of the project management time, once the plan is in place is issue resolution.
  • 03:26 However by recognizing this, and using the pulse meetings and
  • 03:30 the problem solving meetings, we can become pro active in our issue resolution.
  • 03:35 Rather than waiting until it's a crisis,
  • 03:37 we can hopefully identify problems early when they're small and resolve them then.
  • 03:42 This leads to a common on project management.
  • 03:45 You may have heard that you should never micro-manage.
  • 03:48 Well, I disagree.
  • 03:50 In my opinion,
  • 03:50 a project manager should micro-manage the highest risk elements of the project.
  • 03:56 They manage the issues on their project so that they don't explode and
  • 04:00 cause a major project set back.
  • 04:02 A project manager doesn't need to micro-manage everything.
  • 04:06 When things are going smoothly, micromanagement is not required.
  • 04:10 But whenever there is an issue, a problem or a high risk area in a project,
  • 04:13 well, those are the things your project manager should be micromanaging.
  • 04:18 With these meetings, you'll be able to control the project.
  • 04:22 You can check status in the project pulsing meetings and
  • 04:25 proactively respond to issues and problems in the problem-solving meeting.

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