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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 Meetings

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 depend upon the project and the project team.

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.  Whatever team members are required to identify the causes of the problem and solve them should attend the meetings.  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 on the nature of the problem.

Team Meeting Steps

  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.
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  • 00:04 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen, and it's now time to talk about one of our favorite topics,
  • 00:08 meetings.
  • 00:09 Who doesn't love meetings and wish they had more of them?
  • 00:13 Yeah, right.
  • 00:15 Well, let's talk about them anyway.
  • 00:18 Let me be clear, we're talking about meetings among the project team members,
  • 00:21 not the meetings with stakeholders or senior management.
  • 00:25 These team meetings are to serve the team.
  • 00:28 The team uses them to help their communication process.
  • 00:31 They're normally the primary means of integration among the team members.
  • 00:35 At these team meetings,
  • 00:36 the project team addresses topics that are pertinent to the team decision making.
  • 00:41 There are two types of meetings.
  • 00:43 The first is a status meeting, or as I like to refer to them, pulse meetings.
  • 00:47 The second one, is the problem solving meeting with a focus on issue resolution.
  • 00:52 These two can be combined, but
  • 00:54 I strongly recommend that you keep them as two separate meetings.
  • 00:59 Let's take a look at the pulse meetings first.
  • 01:02 Pulse meetings are team meetings that are used to track the project
  • 01:06 status because they only track the changes in status since the last pulse.
  • 01:11 I believe these can typically be done in less than 15 minutes.
  • 01:14 In fact, even on large projects,
  • 01:16 I've run these meetings in only five to ten minutes.
  • 01:20 If your meetings are weekly,
  • 01:21 you probably only have a few tasks that are starting and ending each week.
  • 01:26 The meetings address what has happened since the last pulse meeting.
  • 01:30 What tasks started, what task completed?
  • 01:32 And based upon that,
  • 01:33 are there any issues that require a problem solving meeting to resolve?
  • 01:38 Are there any issues that have been resolved that we can now put to bed?
  • 01:42 Issues can be identified in pulse meetings, but
  • 01:45 issue resolution is not part of the pulse meeting.
  • 01:48 That will be addressed in a separate meeting, where we can have the right
  • 01:52 people to attend, and the rest of the team can get back to work.
  • 01:56 Pulse meetings intentionally are more frequent when project is under stress.
  • 02:00 Just like your own personal pulse rate increases when you're under stress.
  • 02:04 We start adding daily meetings or maybe even twice a day meeting until the crisis
  • 02:09 or stress issue is resolved, and we can stretch back out to our normal interval.
  • 02:14 Incidentally, these can be done virtually, they don't have to be done face to face.
  • 02:20 Let's now talk about problem solving meetings.
  • 02:22 These meetings are just that, problem solving.
  • 02:26 Issues are raised at a pulse meeting or
  • 02:27 issues associated with risk triggers are identified.
  • 02:30 Whatever the reason, there's an issue on the project that needs to be resolved.
  • 02:34 The project leader convenes a portion of the team to
  • 02:38 work on resolving that problem.
  • 02:40 Only the team members who can contribute must attend.
  • 02:43 Of course, any core team member is welcome to attend.
  • 02:46 I never tell a project team member that they can't come to a problem solving
  • 02:50 meeting.
  • 02:51 But I don't want to take up time for those who have nothing to contribute when they
  • 02:55 could be working productively on other project tasks.
  • 02:59 Problem solving meetings will take as much time as they need.
  • 03:03 They're not limited to just 15 minutes.
  • 03:05 And sometimes the problem requires several meetings to get to the root cause of
  • 03:09 the problem and determine a resolution.
  • 03:12 I did an informal poll a few years ago with some friends who are project
  • 03:16 managers, and this is what we found.
  • 03:18 60% of our time is being spent managing issues, problems,
  • 03:22 just the little things that are constantly coming up.
  • 03:25 We also spent some time on schedule, risk, budget, roles and
  • 03:29 responsibilities, and scope, but most of the time was issue management.
  • 03:35 This should not be a surprise to anyone who is a project manager.
  • 03:39 Much of the project management time once the plan is in place, is issue resolution.
  • 03:44 However, by recognizing this and using the pulse meetings and
  • 03:47 the problems solving meetings, we can become proactive in our issue resolution.
  • 03:52 Rather than wait until it's a crisis,
  • 03:54 we can hopefully identify problems early when they're still small and resolve them.
  • 03:59 This leads to comment on micromanagement.
  • 04:02 You may have heard that you should never micromanage.
  • 04:05 I disagree.
  • 04:07 In my opinion,
  • 04:08 a project manager should micromanage the high risk elements of the project.
  • 04:13 They manage those issues on their project so that they don't explode and
  • 04:17 cause a major project setback.
  • 04:19 A project manager does not need to micromanage everything.
  • 04:23 When things are going smoothly, micromanagement is not required.
  • 04:27 But whenever there is an issue, a problem, or a high risk area in the project, well,
  • 04:31 those are the things that your project managers should be paying attention to and
  • 04:36 micromanaging.
  • 04:38 Meetings are a reality of doing business today and
  • 04:40 are definitely an aspect of team communications.
  • 04:43 So do them well, keep them focused on the meeting purpose and
  • 04:48 organized to achieve the meeting goal.

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