Hold Review Meetings

The aim of a review is to keep people up to date with the project’s progress so that everyone has a shared understanding of what is happening.

Hold review meetings throughout the life of a project to discuss progress and milestones. Running these meetings efficiently is vital to maintaining their credibility; make sure that everyone is well prepared.

Plan a Review

Divide review meetings into two groups – regular reviews, held once a month to monitor the detail of activities, achievements, and issues in implementing the plan, and event-driven reviews, to which stakeholders such as your sponsor will be invited, held to mark milestones or to deal with a crisis. Milestone meetings are usually called to check on the business aspects of the project. The sponsor will simply be ascertaining that certain objectives are being met:

• Is it staying within budget?

• Have the business benefits that should have occurred by now actually been achieved?

• Is the project on course to deliver the other business benefits that are listed as its objectives?

Techniques to Practise

Take punctuality seriously. If one team member is ten minutes late for a meeting of six people that cannot start without him, he has wasted an hour of valuable working time.

• Set standards for punctuality at the outset – make it absolutely clear that it is not permissible to be late.

• Explain that you regard lack of punctuality as rude behaviour that cannot be tolerated.

• Insist that someone who offends twice sends a personal note of apology to each of the other participants.

Invite the Right People

The key to selecting the right people to attend meetings is that they will all have a valid contribution to make. Your sponsor will need to attend some meetings but not all. It is likely that key team members will be present at every review. Call in other team members only when they are needed – their presence for the entire duration of the meeting may not be necessary. If you need a decision on something, make sure that the person who can make the decision is present and that you have all the information he will need. The key to inviting the right people is to choose those who will make a valid contribution. Avoid having people attend just because they have attended all the previous meetings, but understand that the absence of a particular team member may present a threat to the project. The overall aim is not to waste anyone’s time.

Keep to the Point

Remind the review meeting of the objectives of the project. Check the project against the time plan. If people stray from the point bring them back to it by saying, for example, “That could be an interesting discussion later, but let’s get back to the main point of this meeting for now”.

Tip

Ensure that you return to the objectives of the project during each meeting, identifying which have been achieved, and which remain.