Forward Momentum: Delivering Results

By Karey Rees

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest frustrations in the workplace is meetings that go on long past their scheduled time allotment or those that finish within their scheduled time, took a crazy turn, went completely off topic and seemed to accomplish nothing related to the original meeting subject.  I’m sure most of you can relate, so I’d like to share my experience about a recent meeting I was in and how it influenced me to improve the ways I’ve conducted all my meetings since.

Not so long ago I was invited to attend a meeting via conference call. The meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes and was to cover quite a bit of material and training. I automatically blocked out 60 minutes on my calendar as past experience has told me, many times over, the meeting would last quite a bit longer than the scheduled 30 minutes. I dialed in, connected to the assigned WebEx screen and introduced myself to the other attendees. The meeting sponsor started the meeting immediately and explained there was only 30 minutes and all topics to be discussed had to be completed in those 30 minutes, no exceptions. Guess what? It got done – really. As I sat in amazement during this meeting about how much was discussed and accomplished in a very short period of time, I made sure to listen as closely as I could to learn this meeting magic.

After several meetings with this meeting sponsor, I’ve learned and now use the following to lead all my group meetings:

• Schedule your meeting for the time you truly think you can accomplish what needs to be done and stick to that time frame.
• Throughout the meeting, remind attendees of the topics at hand and how much time is left to discuss the topics.
• Be sure to speak up and let someone know if they are off topic. Make sure to let them know you will follow up with them to discuss what they would like to talk about and also include any other people who may be needed. Most of the time, the off-topic items can be discussed and resolved very briefly after the meeting.
• If the meeting topics truly do not fit in the allotted time, schedule a follow up meeting instead of going over time and creating conflicts in others’ schedules.
• Be diligent in moving along the topics of the meeting, keeping careful watch of the time.

I hope these points are as helpful to you as they have been to me. What are some of the things you’ve done to successfully keep meetings within their scheduled time allotment?

by Lana Boiko, PMP

Perhaps the most common environment a typical project manager works in is a matrix organization.  Given this circumstance, a lot of project managers not only have no formal authority when it comes to our clients, but also have limited formal authority within our own company. Often the most successful project managers are the ones who develop a methodology and leadership style that allows them to effectively overcome formal authority limitations.

Typical concerns that arise from limited authority situations are: lack of decision-making power, less responsiveness from within the project team and weaker negotiation positions for potential scope and schedule change requirements, to name a few.

So, is managing without authority an art, a science or a technique?  The good news is that there are effective ways to overcome the situation with all of the above, and you can tailor your approach based on your personal management style and preferences. Of course, the process will require significant effort, continuous fine tuning and a good amount of patience and flexibility.

Established Project Processes
The first and most widely accepted way to control the project is through the project process.  The key feature of this approach is that processes provide the necessary structure for your project delivery. Controlling through the process is more likely to be effective in teams where the processes have been established for some time and have been used repeatedly and consistently through multiple projects.  In other words, when your team members understand exactly what to do and how to do it and have been through the process multiple times, your project runs a lot smoother and situations where a strong formal authority is required are few and far apart.

Another nice thing about controlling through the process is that the project manager’s authority is implicit as that of a person responsible for managing the process.  Clear project documentation will have a significant positive effect if controlling a project through process is your primary management mechanism.

Varying Processes
What if you work in an environment where projects vary significantly, driven by major differences in scope, stakeholders’ priorities and project team structures? If you are a consultant, this situation is probably what you live in. Here, controlling through the process is probably not as effective. If the processes have been developed before you joined the project, you have to learn and adopt them. If those processes are not in place yet, developing and establishing them will take some time.

Controlling your project though metrics may become a good addition to your tool kit.  It is generally accepted wisdom that you get what you measure. Carefully study objectives of a project and stakeholders’ expectations and priorities.  Most people cannot allocate appropriate focus to more than three to four measurable parameters on any particular project.  Pick three or four metrics to monitor that would have the biggest impact on the success of a project and on stakeholder’s satisfaction. Measure, review, document diligently, and publish the results in a way that is visible to the team and is easily accessible.

Leveraging Your Personal Style and Competence
The more experienced project and program managers may also rely on developing and then leveraging their personal leadership style. They sometimes control their projects through influence.  The key to using this approach effectively is competence.  Competence does not necessarily mean knowing more than our team or client. How many times have we all felt that the specialists on the team know more than we do? It is not that they know more, they just know different things.

For a project manager, competence is about being able to successfully and effectively deliver on agreed upon objectives while maintaining a positive attitude within the project team. If you are able to demonstrate competence consistently, you will be on your way to developing a reputation of a great project manager and earning the trust of stakeholders and team members.  If people trust you, they are rather likely to imply you have an informal authority, which is perhaps more powerful than any formal kind.

Every project manager finds a unique way to be successful, whether through different combinations of the above mentioned approaches or by developing their own secret sauce. It is fairly certain that at some point in our careers we find ourselves wishing we had more authority to be able to resolve some situations. So please, do share your experiences with your colleagues. Maybe our gathered experiences and lessons learned will help us collectively better manage with limited authority to deliver project success.

Let’s start here. What successful ways have you discovered to manage with little authority?

By Vicki Wrona, PMP

I would like to share an invaluable resource for running effective meetings. This concise book goes beyond the obvious high-level discussion of running effective meetings such as what to do before, during and after the meeting, but really gets into the heart of how to practically run an effective meeting, both with large and small groups. The book is called Great Meetings! Great Results by Pam Plumb and Dee Kelsey.

What I like about this book is that they discuss everything with regard to getting people together and getting results. This includes everything from understanding the purpose of the meeting and the audience to the techniques used to generate then classify and then select ideas to handling conflicts to breaking through creative blocks to making sure everyone clearly understands the outcome. Where else can you get so many concrete ideas in one concise place? I have found this to be a good reference book and have recommended it in my classes for years with good feedback from those who have used it.

One strength of this reference book is the section on breaking through creativity blocks to generate, evaluate and select ideas. We have all heard of various analytical techniques, but rarely are they used well. The most basic technique of all, that of brainstorming to generate ideas, is presented in ways to help your group avoid the most common pitfall of evaluating ideas too quickly. There is also a section on getting and keeping everyone involved at the appropriate level. Never again will you have meetings where people are allowed to sit and not participate. Anyone with ideas or knowledge will be engaged.

One of the techniques outlined in the book for large groups is an exercise called “Something in Common” which lets team members get to know each other a little better and to break the ice. Even if people have been working together for a long time, this is a fun and quick exercise.

First, pair participants up and ask each pair to find something unusual they have in common that they are willing to share with the larger group. Encourage them to go beyond the obvious and get creative. It is always amazing what people will come up with. Quickly go around the room and have each pair share their findings. I have had a lot of fun with competitive groups who try to outdo each other and be the pair with the most outrageous and true similarity. Then put two pairs together so that four people are now finding something in common. Again, encourage creativity and something else besides the items previously found. You can go around the room again and let each group share their results. Again, I direct them to do this quickly or else this exercise can take all day. J Lastly, you can let 8 people meet each other and find something in common if you choose. Obviously, the larger the group, the more “common” their similarities will be. The important thing, though, is not what they come up with but the sharing and discussion beyond normal work that they have.

I like that the book offers practical tips. For example, there are 3 case studies of one page each in length outlining how to handle:

• An undercurrent of hostility between group members
• When a participant attacks the facilitator
• The nay-sayer during brainstorming sessions

There is a nice section with tips and examples on staying true to your values as well. I like that reminder, because we get tempted to stray from our gut and don’t hear that message often enough.

I hope this helps you. Please let me know what you think of this reference.

by Rob Zell

I imagine you could survey employees on any day in any company and they would tell you that meetings are the bane of their existence. Too often, meetings are conducted without an agenda or even an overarching purpose. Attendees jockey for organizational position or display blatant apathy, checking email on mobile devices or laptops.

Meeting derailers are well documented and websites abound for coping with them. One challenge is that we work in an information age in which knowledge workers spend their time gathering, analyzing and synthesizing data, rather than producing or manufacturing. In meetings we have a desire to share what we know, rather than work to completion or decision. We all have a data set that we bring to the table and we need the time to process the data that others have before we can make a decision.

One way to manage this confusion is to have “pre-meetings”: touch base sessions with participants to set the stage and gain buy-in and commitment. Of course this means that a one hour meeting turns into a series of meetings; not the way to increase productivity! I would propose that this is the best reason to integrate the technology of a social collaboration tool into your workplace.

I can already hear the groaning in some corners of your organization. “Just what we need,” the CFO will say, “Facebook for work.” The COO will argue that the organization doesn’t need people “tweeting” on the job. This is what we often think of when the topic of “social” collaboration comes up. What if we took “social” of the term and instead called it “enterprise collaboration?” Few people would argue that engaging more people in the conversation, at least more people with relevant information, improves the quality of the decision.

A collaboration tool for business might be the answer to creating productive sharing prior to the decision meeting. Inviting employees to discuss and share adds value by increasing the knowledge and awareness of the participants and giving them time to process and synthesize. Furthermore, the content and discussion becomes a shared database and with proper use of tagging and cataloging, the information is available to the organization speeding the time to productivity. In a workforce that is generationally shifting, capturing this “tribal knowledge” is critical to the organization’s long term success.

The other great advantage in using a tool like this is that it increases the commitment to the decision. Because the members had a chance to weigh in, discuss, process and be heard, the team can come to a joint decision during the dedicated time allowed without the posturing and politics that might normally occur in the formal meeting space.

And finally, for the naysayers who will argue that these kinds of tools don’t add business value, there is plenty of research out there that says otherwise. In organizations that utilize these tools, there is better alignment, better transparency, better community and better results.

I’d like to hear your thoughts: how might your organization take advantage of “enterprise collaboration” tools to support higher productivity? If you are already using a tool like this (in my organization we use Yammer) how is it paying off?