How to prepare for and run successful meetings.

1. A Framework and strategies for running successful
meetings.
March 13, 2013
Mike Boucher, PMP, PE, CSM
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2.  Attendees of the presentation will take home
◦ A framework for producing successful meetings
◦ At least one or two specific techniques to apply
immediately to improve their own meetings
◦ Even If you don‟t hold meetings yourself, you
should still be able to take away one or two ideas
for improving that weekly department or project
meeting that you dread
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3.  A successful meeting is a meeting in which
meeting objectives are met, decisions are
codified, and participants leave with the
feeling that their time was well spent.
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4.  Core Tenets of successful meetings
 Applying the tenets
◦ Preparing for the meeting
◦ Running the meeting
◦ After the meeting
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5.  Respect people‟s time
 Manage expectations
 Write it down
 Be inclusive
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6.  Everyone in your meeting is very busy and
has other commitments and priorities – be
cognizant of that as you plan and run your
meeting
◦ Start the meeting on time
◦ End the meeting on time – if you run out of time,
ask before you go over the allotted time
◦ Don‟t schedule the meeting for an hour if you can
cover the topics in 20 or 30 minutes
◦ Avoid rat holes
 “This is a really good point, but we don‟t have time to
go deeper today. Let‟s table this and pick it up in a
follow-up meeting”
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7.  The more that attendees understand the
purpose and structure of the meeting, the
easier it will be for them to engage and
contribute to the meeting goal
 Define purpose/goal of the meeting
 Provide context
 Provide agenda
 Review the agenda with attendees
 Sometimes you find out that what you thought was the
purpose of the meeting is not the right purpose – or the
agenda is not the right agenda. Find this out at the
beginning of the meeting so you can adjust the
goal/agenda and get the meeting off to a good start
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8.  Project/share your desktop during the meeting
 Take notes during the meeting
 Send the notes out after the meeting
Allowing people to see what you are writing
◦ serves as a reality check of what people think they heard
 “No, Mike, that‟s not what I meant”
◦ Writing something down reinforces the messages > people
can hear it and see it
“That was a very complicated discussion the last few minutes.
Can someone boil that down to 1 sentence for me for the notes?”
> excellent way to gain or verify consensus
OR
“This is what I think I just heard – did I write it down correctly?”
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9.  Be sensitive to the position and personality of
each attendee and make an effort to engage
them in the meeting > this will help achieve a
stronger and lasting consensus
 Junior or shy people may be hesitant to speak out, but
often times their questions or feedback may raise
practical issues that have been overlooked
 Take a second to welcome new members or attendees
 “Linda – thanks for coming to our weekly QA standup
meeting. It‟s nice to have you here.”
 “OK – we‟ve covered our agenda. Before we close the
meeting, let‟s go around the horn. Nancy, do you have
any questions, concerns, or suggestions? Brent – how
about you?, etc.”
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10. ◦Preparing for the meeting
 Creating the meeting invitation
 Stubbing the notes
◦Running the meeting
◦After the meeting
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11.  A successful meeting starts with a good
invitation
◦ Stated purpose
◦ Stated agenda
◦ Right people (mandatory & optional)
◦ Context (if needed)
 Supporting materials
 Brief history
◦ Minimum duration
◦ Clear and easy connection instructions
 (readable) Phone number in the subject line
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13.  Since you will be projecting your
desktop/notes during the meeting, stub out
the meeting notes before the meeting
 Use the stub notes to drive the meeting
 Trick: Use OneNote to create a nice looking
meeting note stub.
 The next 2 slides show an example of stub
notes
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16.  Show your desktop
 Welcome each person – add them to attendee
list at the top
 Review / sanity-check the agenda
 Take notes during the meeting – using the
framework in your stub notes
 Watch for rat holes
 Watch the time!
 If a strong personality is doing most of the
talking, interject and bring in other attendees
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17.  Don‟t try to capture everything – just key
stuff
 Don‟t get hung up on spelling – you can fix it
later
 Highlight action items and key points as you
go along
 Capture the result of complex discussions in
1 or 2 sentences
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18.  Your attendees are very busy and have many
responsibilities beyond what was discussed in
your meeting
 Approach action items not as contract items that
will be used to nail someone, but rather as simple
reminders that help the person remember what
they need to do > by writing a good action
item, you are making their job easier
 For each action item, strive to
◦ Identify a clear owner
◦ Write the action as specifically as possible
◦ Write the action in words that the owner agrees with (have them help you
write the action) > you want to make it as easy as possible for them to
follow-up
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19.  Good Ones
◦ Mike – cancel task #12345 in Quality Center
◦ Molly – Update spec #97235 to account for the COB
use case (target end of week)
◦ Nancy – provide testing timelines to Mike by
tomorrow afternoon
◦ Mike – schedule a follow-up meeting for the end of
next week
 Bad Ones
◦ Investigate the COB issue [who? What is the outcome?]
◦ Molly – update the spec [for what?, which spec?, when?]
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20.  Finish the Notes
◦ Create a meeting summary at the top of the notes
 Capture what was accomplished or agreed to as well as
what was not accomplished
 Pull from the body, starting with the key points you
highlighted in blue (clean up as needed)
◦ Collect the Next Steps and Action items at the top
 Assign an owner and a clear action > makes it easy for
people to remember what they need to do
Most people will only read the summary and action
items – so make them clear, concise, and complete!
 Send the notes to all attendees
 Store the notes on the intranet
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23.  Even if you are „just a meeting participant‟,
you can still coach the meeting organizer:
◦ At the beginning of the meeting: “Excuse me, but before we
start, would you mind going over the goals of the meeting?
And what‟s our agenda for today?”
◦ At the beginning of the meeting: “Are you going to send
notes out afterwards?”
◦ During the meeting: “That was a great discussion the past 5
minutes, but I am not sure where we ended up. Can
someone summarize that for me?”
◦ During the meeting: “Would you please add an entry in the
notes for me to follow-up on that?”
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24.  For potentially difficult or highly charged
meetings, it can help to tag team on the
notes
◦ You are running a meeting in which there are some very
difficult characters and you know you will have to be on
your toes > ask someone before the meeting to take notes
for you.
 “Hey Matt – would you be sure to make a note of that?”
◦ If you know the meeting is going to cover some
complicated topics beyond what your PM knows, offer to
take notes during the meeting, then send them to him/her
to incorporate into the official notes.
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25.  Framework and strategies for running a meeting in
which objectives are met, decisions are codified,
and participants leave satisfied
 Core Tenets
 Respect people‟s time
 Manage expectations
 Write it down
 Be inclusive
 3 stages of a meeting
 Preparing for the meeting
 Running the meeting
 After the meeting
 Couple of tricks
 Use OneNote to create a nice header
 Use color to highlight key points and action items in the notes
 Project/share your desktop during the meeting as you take notes
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26.  Thanks for listening – lets open it up for questions
and discussion….
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27. Mike Boucher, PMP, PE, CSM
Project & Program Management, SDLC, IT Development
Mike is a Development Project and Program Manager with diversified work experience in companies
ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500. Mike has a passion to increase the quality and transparency
of healthcare through the use of Information Technology. He has degrees in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Wisconsin and a Graduate Certificate in Pharmaceutical & Biomedical
Regulatory Affairs from the University of Georgia.
Mike is a Development Program Manager at NextGen Healthcare, a provider of EHR, financial, and
HIE solutions for hospitals, health systems, physician practices, and other healthcare organizations.
Prior to working at NextGen, Mike worked in the Wireless Telecom and Professional Audio
industries.
From 2010 – 2012, Mike served as volunteer Director of Technology on the Project Management
Institute‟s Healthcare Community of Practice, whose mission is to expand project management
knowledge in the healthcare industry.
Mike is a member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the Project
Management Institute, the Atlanta Software and Systems Process Improvement Network, Georgia
BIO, and the Technology Association of Georgia.
Contact Mike at mikeboucher@yahoo.com
Find Mike on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedsp/
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