Seminar in PM Week 8 DQR

SeminarinPMWeek8DQR.docx

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help >Seminar in PM Week 8 DQR

Samantha Perez

From the beginning through completion of a project, what types of team meetings are usually held and for what purpose? Share your own experience and/or research with project team meetings.

In my own experience, I have been part of regular weekly team meetings to go over stats, process updates, and any other updates regarding our part of the business. If there was no need for a meeting it would be canceled but for the most part, they are held every week. After some research, I found that there are several types of project meetings. These meeting types are for project kickoff, project status, stakeholders, change control, and end of project (Publishing, 2022). A project kickoff meeting is a great opportunity for everyone to get to know each other by introducing themselves. In this meeting the project manager should go over key project details, the projects purpose, and next steps (Publishing, 2022). Project status meetings are self-explanatory, they are to provide project updates. These updates could be regarding the status of the schedule, scope, budget, issues or risks, and it give the team the opportunity to share their thoughts or concerns that hadn’t yet been covered (Publishing, 2022). Stakeholder meetings are for stakeholders that require a “high touch” communication such as senior management (Publishing, 2022). Every project should have a change control plan and sometimes that involves having meetings. It is best practice to have these meetings so if a risk event occurs there is a process in place to manage the risk. These change control meetings will discuss the change, requests the project sponsor to participate, and plan the next steps (Publishing, 2022). The last thing to do for any project should be the end of project meeting. This is a great opportunity to go over lessons learned, areas of improvement, and what worked (Publishing, 2022).

Specify some typical team meeting rules and guidelines. How can they make meetings more effective and productive? What is your direct experience with team meeting rules? Have you used them to facilitate a meeting? If so, with what result? How have you (or how would you) enforce team meeting rules if you were in charge of the meeting?

Fortunately, I haven’t had too much experience with meeting rules or guidelines. I believe this is fortunate because rules are typically put in place as a result of unprofessional behavior. There have been a few meetings I’ve attended where the only rule has been to not have our phones out. Some personal guidelines I try to follow in meetings are to not have my phone with me, be early or on time, contribute to the conversation, and think before I speak. When I have facilitated meetings in the past I will normally give a brief agenda of what will be discussed in the meeting. Sometimes I would also go over what I expected from the team during the meeting. These meetings were not about projects but these could be used as guidelines for any meeting. An added guideline could be to request the team to avoid the blame game, this is primarily for end of project meetings (Publishing, 2022).

As a project manager, how would you empower your team? Use concrete examples to support your ideas.

The first thing that came to mind would be to ask my team for their insight. I think that if you ask the team for this, it shows you care about their insight and really gives them validation. Personally, I feel more and more empowered the more I contribute and provide my own insight at team meetings. Even if my insight isn’t helpful, usually team members are respectful of it and it can help spark further conversations. Some additional ideas I got from Re:Work that I really like are to develop leaders, encourage open communication, and demonstrate that you trust your team members (Re:Work - Guide: Empower Your Team, n.d.). When developing leaders it is recommended to delegate projects and tasks to team members (Re:Work - Guide: Empower Your Team, n.d.). I’m always looking to grow in my career and try my best to be open with my supervisor or manager about this growth. With this open communication, I have sometimes been able to get additional or delegated tasks assigned to me to help with this growth, and definitely made me feel empowered. Unfortunately, I have not been in a position to really help others feel empowered but when I do I will draw on my own experience as I know firsthand what can work.

Do you/would you set meeting objectives and an agenda in advance? If so, how would you ensure that the objectives are met and the agenda is followed? Are there instances that justify moving away from a predetermined agenda? If so, when and why?

Absolutely, I would have an agenda or meeting objectives. I have found that this helps team meetings stay on track and it is helpful throughout the week to add details to an agenda so nothing is forgotten. For the agenda, I would make sure the topics of high priority are discussed first as sometimes discussions for any given topic can run long and it would be best to go over the most important ones first. Unless there is a very urgent instance to move away from an agenda, such as an urgent request from the sponsor or an emergency of some kind, I do not see an instance that justifies moving away from a predetermined agenda. Sometimes topics on the agenda are pushed to the next meeting, due to time constraints, or crossed off all together because it was no longer needed.

How have you used (or how would you use) project team meetings to manage scope creep? How do you hold team members accountable? What tools are available to you?

The project kick-off meeting is a great opportunity to prevent scope creep. To help prevent scope creep, the project kick-off meeting should go over the key project details, such as milestones or project schedule and budget. This is also a great way to start empowering the team by asking questions and getting their input. In addition to this having a change and risk management plan in place would be beneficial. The change control meetings could be part of these plans so that changes are reviewed to see if they are truly in alignment with the project scope.

What team building activities have you used (would you use) to keep the team focused and motivated? Share specific examples and outcomes.

I have been part of a couple of team-building activities. Once I went with my team to an escape room and got to know some team members I didn’t really talk to before that. After going I felt more comfortable collaborating with those team members and reaching out to them for that collaboration. During the holidays, I have also been part of a gingerbread house contest. We were given a certain amount of time to put together one of those gingerbread kits and decorate it however we wanted. The supervisors in the department played judges and chose the best one. Both activities were a lot of fun and really helped build relationships with people I wouldn’t normally talk to on the team. Not that I didn’t want to talk to them we just didn’t. It helped us build rapport with each other and overall helped the team work more closely together. In the future, I would definitely use either of these as a good team-building exercise. I’ve seen different types of cookie house kits being made for different seasons now so it wouldn’t just have to be around the holidays.

What types of conflict have you experienced while working on teams, and how did/would you handle the conflict? Is conflict always negative? Provide an example of productive conflict,

There was once a team member I worked with who would often come across as confrontational in team meetings. They would question everything although it was explained already why certain things were happening in such a way. We were developing a new process and they did not like the flow of the process being built. For example, there were certain documents (such as utility bill, project design plans, building ownership, and project contract) that needed to be collected in order to approve a project for installation. Eventually, certain documents changed which milestone they would be collected at because we learned over time that it was difficult to get them from the customer or other teams responsible. This team member did not understand why we could not just continue to stress to these teams and customers that it was important to collect them in a timely manner, even though they weren’t necessary at the milestone they were at. After many team meetings with our team and project manager, we were all able to contribute and come to a solution everyone could agree to. I personally tried my best to contribute to these meetings with whatever insight I could provide and tried to create a dialog and ask questions to help prevent actual conflict. I believe having open discussions prevented any actual conflict and helped us really round out the process in the end. It was productive conflict.

Publishing, W. (2022, June 16). The 5 Different Types of Meetings Project Managers Need To Master. Wiley Efficient Learning. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.efficientlearning.com/blog/the-5-types-of-meetings-project-managers-need-to-master/

Response –

Tyler Hickey

From the beginning through completion of a project, what types of team meetings are usually held and for what purpose? Share your own experience and/or research with project team meetings.

My experience is in medical device manufacturing, so the list below is definitely skewed towards my direct experience in my field, but should generally apply to other fields as well:

· Project kick off – to establish the scope and schedule of the project

· Internal meetings – weekly, bi-weekly, or other in order to maintain project status updates, monitor progress, address challenges

· Customer update meetings – weekly with working team members from customer, monthly with management from customer. Meeting purpose is to present project progress, raise any concerns relative to project risks

· Supplier meetings – material supply is critical, especially in manufacturing, so there are often requirements for supplier meetings which serve the purpose of solving supply issues

Meeting rules are an important thing, something I’ve found to be more effective the more meetings I’ve had to run. The importance is that they help level set expectations across the attendees, and having known expectations puts the power back in the meeting organizer’s hands in order to keep a meeting on track. From my own experience, I’d say about 50% of the meetings I host have ground rules. The ground rules I’ve implemented are the following:

· Including a bullet-pointed agenda in the meeting invite to the team

· Sending out meeting minutes at meeting conclusion

· Respect the end-time of the meeting

These basic ground rules work well, but a marked improvement would be more consistency around sending agenda reminders before the meeting. My experience is that, especially for weekly meetings, that the cadence is not quick enough to not remind the team of the actions due. The combination of sending meeting minutes each week, and reminding the team the day before of the impending actions due would help to better govern the team.

As a project manager, how would you empower your team? Use concrete examples to support your ideas.

Team empowerment can take many shapes and sizes. My experience has been that the more responsibility one takes on, the harder it is to take the time to prioritize these types of things. It is too easy to get caught up in finishing a project or work package and moving directly into the next thing. My version of empowerment often takes the shape of ownership within the project. I often feel as though I unintentionally micro-manage if I lack trust, but allowing for more individual ownership and stepping away from work packages to just get updates from the owner(s) has helped me move towards empowering my own team.

As stated prior to this, I do practice setting meeting objectives ahead of the meeting. I attempt to ensure these objectives are set by having standardized forms or trackers used to guide the meeting. Having a pre-defined tool for this allows pre-population of tasks, actions and minutes. Stray from the predetermined agenda is necessary when someone’s updates drive a new risk or issue and the meeting has the necessary attendees to address the problem.

How have you used (or how would you use) project team meetings to manage scope creep? How do you hold team members accountable? What tools are available to you?

Scope creep management is an aspect of project management that I have not yet comfortably grasped, therefore I’m glad to have to address this question and explore the tools available. Scope creep can be tracked through meeting minutes, including a section to document risks or new problems that need tracking. Holding team members accountable comes down to being very diligent about documenting original target dates, and clearly showing those dates against new targets. Microsoft Project is one tool to handle this, by implementing multiple “Finish” date columns.

What team building activities have you used (would you use) to keep the team focused and motivated? Share specific examples and outcomes.

The best example thus far for team building was actually a joint event with our customer, for which we had a post-work bowling night with pizza at Funspot at Weirs Beach in Laconia, New Hampshire. This event was surprisingly relaxing and was a great opportunity to unwind with the team. The more commonly used activity is simple team dinners. I’ve found it quite easy to leave work at the door at a dinner, which has always been refreshing especially at the expense of learning more about my team members personal lives, interests, hobbies, etc.

What types of conflict have you experienced while working on teams, and how did/would you handle the conflict? Is conflict always negative? Provide an example of productive conflict

I’ve definitely experienced both functional and dysfunctional conflict as a project manager. Often it has been disagreements between team members over how to document something that has gone wrong in a medical device product launch. For example, if an equipment qualification fails for some reason, Engineering wants to dig in and fix the problem, while Quality wants to ensure we know everything that went wrong and how to fix it, while Project Management wants to re-run the qualification ASAP to keep the project on schedule. This is an example of productive conflict because it challenges the team to satisfy all of those needs via compromise and working together on a solution.

Response-