Effective Team Meetings & Email protocol

1. Effective Team Meetings & Email protocol Matthew Bryan

2. Problem statement and its reason Overproduction & rework No able to solve all issues in timely manner Current state Ideal state Lack of issues resolution in timely fashion • Too many meetings and a little productive time after all meetings • No follow up on action items discussed from previous meetings • No clear agenda and decision making after team meetings • Not right people are involved in the team meeting • Lack of effective and timely communication due to • A huge amount of waiting time for making decision • Even old issues are not resolved and suddenly new issues come up • Overloading of people • Unmotivated participants.

3. How to run effective team meeting?

4. Output Team meeting structure • Objectives • Anticipated outcomes Input Meeting • MoM • Action Items • Accountability • Follow-up plan • SWOT Analysis • Agenda • Establish Norms • Participants • Type of meeting • Pre-Planning • Pre-Work • Debrief last meeting • Stick to Agenda • Problem solving approach • Involve every participant

5. Before organizing a meeting, organizer needs to conduct following steps. Situational analysis: Organizer clearly needs to state what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT Analysis) so this meeting should be organized. In order to address these threats or to avail these opportunities what should be the objectives of the meeting. Create an Agenda correlating with the objectives. Develop meeting process that suits best for your type of meeting. Build evaluation into your planning at the beginning Input to team meeting

6. Meeting objective types Information Transfer - impart/transmit information Discussion - Discussion to action plan/idea Permission - to make decision yes/no Characteristics of objective (SMART) Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-focused Define meeting objective Help the participants to understand the expectation from a meeting Find out what people want to know What you think is important, and what others think is important may differ greatly. While it is important to communicate information you consider critical, consider concerns of affected or interested groups. Help to measure the success of a meeting

7. Ask following questions to identify Involved in such activities before Directly affected Needed to take decisions Have a huge amount of information Spread the outcomes/lessons learned to other organizations Ask each stakeholder which other persons or parties they think should be contacted. This way, you minimize the possibility of forgetting a target group. Communication efforts that aim too broadly are rarely effective so categorize Identify Key people/Stakeholders Who Directly involved or impacted in decision or action Must May be Not necessarily

8. Define roles Time keeper, minutes taker, etc. Debrief last meeting Reviewing action list provides team accountability and brings relevant information to the current agenda. Involve every participant Everyone has right to speak views. No personal attacks. One person speaks at a time. Avoid side conversations. “Parking Lot” list No multi-tasking During meeting

9. Stick to Agenda Discuss only topics decided in the Agenda with timeline. Make sure everyone is following the agenda If something interesting comes up and not in Agenda, put it into Agenda and discuss it in next team meeting Problem solving approach Focus on the process or problem, not on the person Make sure what you say and do give the same message Share the workload evenly Gauge team’s progress towards completing assignment. People will listen to you for 30 seconds or 7 lines. Make sure you can get your message across effectively! During Meeting Continued…

10. Summarize what has been accomplished and what needs to be done by whom and by when. Review any “Parking Lot” items and assure that these will be addressed. Define agenda for next meeting in last 5 minutes so that all the meeting are connected with each other. Thank people for their time and participation and officially state that meeting is adjourned. End meeting with

11. MoMs Decision making or Action items meeting should have minutes. Information only, survey, may not be having minutes. All the people attended and invited should receive MOMs. Clarity what needs to be done when and by whom, and thus make it less likely that important deadlines will go unnoticed. Every action should have problem statement. For meeting summary, status reports, issue logs, risk logs, Lessons Learned information can be stored Maintain and Archive Project Records Action Items Things to be accomplished between successive team meetings. For accountability of meeting based on its output. Follow-up plan and evaluation Keeps communication flexible and dynamic Feedback from participants through face to face, survey at a separate time. Explore methods to update/refine communications approach Outcome assessment Output of meeting

12. How Rate meeting accountability based on its output. Determine the quarterly goals for the team. Analyze the actual outputs with the meeting objectives to understand the real benefits of conducting the meeting If meeting is not able to match 100%, go to first step (slide 2). List the three most likely things this stakeholder will misunderstand or get wrong unless the you stresses the correct information, and explains any possible misunderstanding. Meeting accountability

13. Write a good and concise email subject Give the message's bottom line such read, action deadline as email subject. Try to talk about one subject per message only. For another subject, start a new email. Use Cc: field sparingly. Try not to use the Cc: field unless the recipient in the Cc: field knows why they are receiving a copy of the message. Generally an email is addressed to To: field and Cc: field is for information only. To: is responsible for replying that email. In case To: does not know the answer Cc: can reply on To: behalf. Use “reply all cautiously ” Only when your reply will be necessary to know for original sender and all people in original email's To: and Cc: field. Try to answer all questions in an email otherwise it will inundate your inbox. Be concise and to the point. Do not forward chain letters. Avoid just Me too or Thank you emails. Rules to send an email

14. What was the main idea this message was trying to get across to you? What action, if any, is the message recommending that people take? Was there anything in the message that was confusing? Which of these phrases (Easy or hard to understand) best describes the message? Was there anything in message that you liked/disliked or bothered you? If yes, what? Was there anything in the message that was hard to believe? If yes, what? Was it talking to: Someone like me or Someone else, not me What words best describes how you feel about message? Informative / Not informative Did you learn anything new from the message? If yes, what? Rules to evaluate an email