Checklist for productive meetings

You may have attended a few meetings that you did not think were the best use of your time. Frequent and unproductive meetings tend to have a negative impact on individual and team productivity and well-being. In this reading, you will learn best practices for ensuring productivity before, during and after meetings.

Plenty of things can make meetings unproductive, but an internal study at Google revealed that productive meetings have three elements in common:

1. Active participation from attendees

2. A clear and concise agenda that is followed throughout

3. The correct attendees (meaning the participants can contribute to achieving the meeting’s goal)

Follow this checklist to help achieve these aims and facilitate more productive meetings for you and your project team:

Before the meeting

• Prepare an agenda that states the purpose and goals of the meeting, and share the agenda with participants.

• Only invite people who need to be there and who can help reach the goals of the meeting. Make participants’ roles and responsibilities for the meeting clear. Add non-essential participants as optional to the meeting invitation.

• If you are working with people in different time zones, share the time zone burden by alternating recurring meeting times.

• Evaluate the need for the meeting and cancel if it isn’t necessary. Consider whether the meeting content can be covered via email. 

• Schedule shorter meetings. Meetings tend to expand to the time allotted to them, so try to get more done in a shorter amount of time.

• Set aside time to prepare for the meeting. Read the necessary materials, review the agenda, and come ready to participate. 

During the meeting

• At the beginning of the meeting, clearly state the meeting goals. Stick to the agenda throughout the meeting to avoid getting derailed. For recurring meetings, review the action items from the previous meeting to ensure accountability. 

• Encourage participants to put phones and laptops away during meetings and silence notifications, if possible.

• Practice and demonstrate active listening. Respond verbally (e.g., “That makes sense. Tell us more.”) and non-verbally (through head nodding and eye contact) to show engagement.  

• Encourage participation and give everyone a chance to speak, including remote participants. Ask open-ended questions like, “What does everyone think?” instead of “Does everyone agree?”

• Help everyone relax and feel more comfortable by starting meetings with open-ended, personal questions like, “How was your weekend?”

• Capture key points, action items, and decisions from the meeting, and assign action items to the appropriate meeting participants.

After the meeting

• Recap key decisions, action items, timelines, and notes and send out to participants.

• Schedule necessary follow-up meetings with relevant context.

• Assess the need for and frequency of recurring meetings. Schedule meetings less frequently, if possible.

Pro Tip: If you are new to the company or team, find out about and try to apply their typical meeting practices before making any major changes.

Key takeaway

Productive meetings generally require active participation from attendees, a clear and concise agenda that is followed throughout, and the correct attendees. Following the best practices for before, during, and after meetings described here can help you have more productive meetings. When less time is needed for meetings because meetings are more productive, more time can be devoted to project tasks. 

Would love to know your thoughts around this topic, please comment below.

Creating an effective influencing statement

 Introductions in literature are important. Think of the opening lines of a good book—they help set the tone for what the reader can expect going forward. Introductions are important in project management too, especially when you are hoping to influence a stakeholder to consider and approve a new plan or idea. 

In this reading, I will help you apply techniques you can use to influence others. I will take you through the steps of creating a strong influencing statement that opens the conversation and sets you up for success with your audience.

What is influencing?

First, let’s review what it means to influence another person. Influencing is the ability to alter another person’s thinking or behaviors. If you have ever tried to persuade another person to understand your point of view, then you know that influencing is easier said than done.

Conger’s four steps

In his article, The Necessary Art of Persuasion, Jay A. Conger identified four steps to effectively influence another person to consider new ideas. 

As you learned earlier, those steps are: 

1. Establish credibility

2. Frame for common ground

3. Provide evidence

4. Connect emotionally 

Throughout your career in project management, there will be times when you will need to influence someone to consider an idea, approve a plan, or complete a project task. Conger’s four steps provide a useful framework for thoughtfully approaching conversations that are important to project success and influencing stakeholders. Let’s explore each step further before applying them to an influencing statement:

1. Establish credibility

When trying to persuade another person to listen to you, it helps to establish credibility. Ask yourself, why should this person listen to you? According to Conger, it is best to draw credibility from both expertise and relationships. 

You can build credibility by showing a level of expertise on the topic at hand. It also helps to have “a history of sound judgement.” If you find that you lack expertise on a subject, don’t worry! You can work to increase your knowledge through education or research, or you can even ask an expert for help.

You can also build credibility through strong relationships with your audience and others around you. Conger found that influential leaders tend to show their trustworthiness and willingness to do right by their colleagues over time, and in turn, people are more likely to listen to them.

2. Frame for common ground

The next step in effectively persuading people is to frame for common ground. You can do this by making a case for how your idea would benefit your audience, and you can determine how your ideas will benefit your audience by gaining a strong understanding of them and what they value. Pay close attention to what matters to your audience by listening carefully and gathering information during meetings and conversations. Then they frame your ideas based on your audience’s needs and interests. 

3. Provide evidence

The third step is to provide evidence that supports your ideas. As Conger notes, though numbers are important, the best persuaders pair numbers with vivid language. They share stories, examples, and metaphors to help influence their audiences. Using vivid language can help bring your figures to life and draw stakeholders’ interest to your proposal.

4. Connect emotionally

The fourth step is to connect emotionally with your audience. In this step, you illustrate that you are emotionally invested in the idea that you are presenting. But crucially, Conger notes, you must also do your best to determine and match the emotional state of your audience.

Applying Conger’s steps to an influencing statement

Conger’s four steps—establish credibility, frame for common ground, provide evidence, and connect emotionally—are meant to be applied throughout important conversations with those whom you aim to influence. But to set yourself up for success during these conversations, you can apply the four steps to the influencing statement that sets the stage for your idea. 

Let’s discuss how Conger’s four steps come together in the following example: 

Carmen is a project manager at a small marketing agency. She would like to convince a human resources director at her organization to approve a new process for onboarding new graphic design employees.

Though the company has an existing onboarding process, this process is the same for all new hires, regardless of role. As a project manager working in the human resources department, she learns that it is hard for newly-hired graphic designers to onboard since there are only a few people who hold graphic design roles at the company. Carmen identifies that there is a lack of information available for new graphic design hires to turn to for learning about procedures and software specific to their role. 

Carmen would like to propose that all new graphic design hires receive a digital welcome packet containing guidelines for installing software, processes to be aware of, and other design-specific onboarding documents. Carmen developed a similar process in her role at a previous company, and it received a positive response from employees. She thinks a similar process will work for her new organization too, so she sets up time with her director to present her idea.

To influence her director to approve the new process, Carmen opens her presentation with a strong influencing statement:

I’d like to propose a new onboarding process for graphic design hires. 

(Provide evidence) In reviewing our new hire surveys, 80% of recent graphic design hires have assigned a negative rating to our onboarding process. When I followed up  with respondents, I learned that our graphic designers lack access to relevant information that could help them acclimate to our organization faster. To address this issue, I would like to create a digital welcome packet containing design-specific onboarding documentation.

(Frame for common ground) I have met with leaders on the graphic design team to discuss this idea, and they agreed that a design-specific onboarding process might help increase the productivity of new hires, since a better onboarding process would enable them to be better prepared to take on projects in their first few weeks on the job.

(Establish credibility) In my previous role, I designed a similar, role-specific onboarding process, which increased our new hire satisfaction rates by 60%. I think a new process could benefit employees here, as well.

(Connect emotionally) It can be overwhelming to join a new company. A smoother, more personalized onboarding experience might help set the tone for the kind of support new graphic design hires can expect from our team. 

Key takeaway

In this influencing statement, the project manager:

• Provided evidence from company surveys to set the stage for her proposal.

• Framed for common ground by noting how a new onboarding process might increase employee productivity.

• Established credibility by outlining her previous experience with launching similar processes.

• Connected emotionally by encouraging her audience to reflect on past experiences they may have endured as a new hire. 

By opening with a strong influencing statement, you can set yourself up for a successful conversation that is more likely to persuade your audience and achieve your goals.

Would love to know your thoughts around this topic, please comment below.

Writing an effective escalation email

In this lesson, you are learning how to communicate risks and changes to your team and stakeholders. In the previous video, you were introduced to escalation: the process of enlisting the help of higher level project leadership or management to remove an obstacle, clarify or reinforce priorities, and validate next steps.

There are many ways to escalate a risk, and it is important to set escalation standards with your stakeholders before beginning work on a project. In this reading, we will focus on the escalation email, and go over best practices for writing one.

Escalation email best practices

All projects—even those managed by experienced project managers—occasionally have problems. Your role as the project manager is to help resolve problems and remove barriers that prevent your team from making progress toward your goals. While many problems might be small enough to resolve within your core team, other problems—like a major change in your budget or timeline—may need to be brought to stakeholders for a final decision. Detailing these problems, their potential impact, and the support you need in a clear and direct email to your audience can be an effective communication tool.

Effective escalation emails:

• Maintain a friendly tone

• State your connection to the project

• Explain the problem

• Explain the consequences

• Make a request

Let’s discuss these five keys to writing a strong escalation email.

Maintain a friendly tone

When drafting an escalation email, you may feel tempted to get straight to the point, especially when dealing with a stressful and time-sensitive problem. But keep in mind that it is important to address issues with grace. Consider opening your email with a simple show of goodwill, such as “I hope you’re doing well.” When describing the issue, aim for a blameless tone. Above all, keep the email friendly and professional. After all, you are asking for the recipient’s help. Be sure to close your email by thanking the recipient for their time.

State your connection to the project

Introduce yourself early in the email if you have less familiarity with the project stakeholders. Be sure to clearly state your name, role, and relationship to the project. This helps the reader understand why you are reaching out. Keep your introduction brief and to the point—a single sentence should suffice. If you know the person on the receiving end of the escalation email, you can simply reinforce your responsibility on the project before getting straight to the problem.

Explain the problem

Once you greet your recipient and briefly introduce yourself, explain the issue at hand. Clearly state the problem you need to solve. Provide enough context for the reader to understand the issue, but aim to keep your message as concise as possible. Avoid long, dense paragraphs that may obscure your message and tempt the reader to skim.

Explain the consequences

After explaining the problem, clearly outline the consequences. Describe specifically how this issue is negatively impacting the project or how it has the potential to negatively impact the project later in the project timeline. Again, keep your explanation concise and your tone friendly.

Propose a course of action and make a request

This is the central piece of a strong escalation email. In this section, you propose a solution (or solutions) and state what you need from the recipient. A thoughtful solution accompanied by a clear request lets the recipient know how they can help and moves you toward a resolution.

Putting it all together

Let’s see how these best practices come together to form a strong escalation email. In the scenario that prompts the email, Sayid, a project manager from a company that sells gift baskets, is having a quality control issue with one of the items in a line of holiday baskets. If the issue is not rectified soon, the product launch will have to be delayed and the company will lose money. In the annotated email example below, Sayid explains the issue to his internal stakeholders and requests a meeting with them.

Key takeaway

In this example, Sayid maintains a friendly tone, clearly explains the problem and its potential consequences, and makes a clear request of the recipients. The email is also brief and to the point. 

To recap, effective escalation emails apply these five best practices:

• Maintain a friendly tone

• State your connection to the project

• Explain the problem

• Explain the consequences

• Make a request

Escalation is a useful skill for solving problems quickly, and sending a strong escalation email that applies these best practices can help get your team the help it needs.

Would love to know your thoughts around this topic, please comment below.

The founding principles of Scrum

 In this reading, you will learn to define the characteristics of Scrum as we review what makes Scrum different from other frameworks.

Although Scrum was first used to describe Agile content in 1986 in the Harvard Business Review, the term originates from the internationally loved sport, rugby. In rugby, a “scrum” involves players huddling closely together with their heads down while trying to gain possession of the ball. Then, the players work together in order to achieve their shared goal: to get the ball across the line and score!

The original Harvard Business Review paper, written by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiri Nonaka and titled The New New Product Development Game, introduces Scrum in the chapter “Moving the Scrum downfield.” Throughout the paper, the authors continue to point out which characteristics of a team help to move the Scrum downfield. Those are: 

• Built-in instability: In the Scrum world, teams are given the freedom to achieve important outcomes with “challenging requirements.” Takeuchi and Nonaka explain that this gives teams “an element of tension” necessary to “carry out a project of strategic importance to the company.” 

• Self-organizing teams: Scrum Teams were intended to operate like their own start-up, with a unique order that lacks true hierarchy. These teams are considered self-organizing when they exhibit autonomy, continuous growth, and collaboration.  

• Overlapping development phases: Individuals on a Scrum Team must “work toward synchronizing their pace to meet deadlines.” At some point throughout the process, each individual’s pace starts to overlap with others, and eventually, a collective pace is formed within the team.

• Multi-learning: Scrum is a framework that relies heavily on trial and error. Scrum Team members also aim to stay up-to-date with changing market conditions and can then respond quickly to those conditions. 

• Subtle control: As we mentioned, Scrum Teams are self-organizing and operate like a start-up, but that doesn’t mean there is no structure at all. By creating checkpoints throughout the project to analyze team interactions and progress, Scrum Teams maintain control without hindering creativity. 

• Organizational transfer of learning: On Scrum Teams, everyone is encouraged to learn skills that may be new to them as they support other team members. 

The authors’ main point was that “each element, by itself, does not bring about speed and flexibility. But taken as a whole, the characteristics can produce a powerful new set of dynamics that will make a difference.” Though these concepts were first introduced in 1986, they still remain remarkably true for Scrum Teams today.

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Adopting an Agile mindset: The Agile Manifesto

 In this reading, we will introduce you to that manifesto, which is made up of four values and 12 principles that define the mindset that all Agile teams should strive for. 

The history of Agile

Agile as a project management approach was introduced to the world in 2001 in the United States. At a ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, 17 self-proclaimed organizational anarchists came together and combined several lightweight processes to create what we know today as the Agile Manifesto. The creators of Agile intended it to be a set of values and principles that would improve upon and transform existing software development processes, but companies in various industries quickly saw the value of Agile, too. Soon, Agile was adopted across all fields. 

Agile values and principles

In the last video, you explored the Agile Manifesto—the guiding force behind all Agile teams—in-depth. You learned that Agile is a highly collaborative approach suited for very complex and competitive projects. In this reading, we’ll briefly explore the four values and 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto. 

The Agile values refer to the following four statements: 

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

Agile experts see these values as important underpinnings of the highest performing teams, and every team member should strive to live by these values to apply the full benefits of Agile.

The same is true for the 12 principles, which are at the core of every Agile project:

• “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” Whether you are working to create a product for your company or for a customer, chances are that someone is awaiting its delivery. If that delivery is delayed, the result is that the customer, user, or organization is left waiting for that added value to their lives and workflows. Agile emphasizes that delivering value to users early and often creates a steady value stream, increasing you and your customer’s success. This will build trust and confidence through continuous feedback as well as early business value realization.

• “Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.” When working in Agile, it’s important to be agile. That means being able to move swiftly, shifting direction whenever necessary. That also means that you and your team are constantly scanning your environment to make sure necessary changes are factored into the plans. Acknowledging and embracing that your plans may change (once, twice, or several times) ensures that you and your customers are maximizing your success.

• “Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.” Delivering your product in small, frequent increments is important because it allows time and regular opportunities for stakeholders—including customers—to give feedback on its progress. This ensures that the team never spends too much time going down the wrong path.

• “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.” Removing barriers between developers and people focused on the business side of the project, builds trust and understanding and ensures that the developers, or those building the solution, are in tune with the needs of the users. 

• “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” A successful Agile team includes team members that not only trust each other to get the work done but are also trusted by their sponsors and executives to get the work done. Teams build better solutions when they are empowered and motivated to deliver difficult projects.

• “The most efficient and effective method of information to and within a development is face-to-face conversation.”There isn’t anything quite like face-to-face communication. Face-to-face communication allows us to catch certain cues, body language, and facial expressions that are sometimes lost when using forms of communication like email, chat, or the phone. However, we can’t always be face-to-face. Establishing effective communication norms—no matter the format—is essential to effective teams. 

• “Working software is the primary measure of progress.” In Agile teams, the main way to demonstrate meaningful completion of work is to show a working piece of the solution. In software teams, that might mean a functional piece of software. In non-software teams, that might mean a critical portion of the solution that is ready to be demonstrated to users or their representatives in order to collect feedback. This is in contrast to traditional or Waterfall projects, where the completion of project documents could be used to measure progress. In Agile project management, it is not enough to say that the team is 80% done with an activity if there is no working, demonstrable artifact available to review.

• “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.” Maintaining a steady but careful pace will prevent errors along the way. Also, you never want your team to feel overworked or overwhelmed. On the flip side, a team that is underutilized may become bored and lose the creative spark to innovate. The Agile ideal is to achieve a steady pace of effort for the team that avoids overtime and burnout.

• “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.” This principle conveys that just because the team is working fast doesn’t mean they sacrifice quality. By emphasizing quality and design throughout the project development phase, the agility, efficiency, and speed of the team will be increased. When a team delivers a well-built solution, they can quickly respond to user feedback and new information. However, if the product is low quality, implementing changes can become problematic, complex, and slow down the entire team. 

• “Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.” The team should avoid implementing extra features into the solution that weren’t explicitly requested by the user or product owner. This includes removing procedures that are no longer necessary, and reducing unnecessary documentation. 

• “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.” Team members should be able to get their work done by designing their own work processes and practices, without a manager dictating how they operate. Team members should also feel empowered to speak up with questions, concerns, or feedback.

• “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” In Agile, it is important to acknowledge that learning from successes and failures is continuous. No team is perfect. There will be mistakes, challenges, trials, and triumphs. Teams should reflect on all of these different aspects of their activities so that they can make necessary adjustments. 

For additional information, read more on the 12 principles here.

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Preparing an effective presentation

At various points throughout a project, you will likely be required to deliver a presentation to team members, key stakeholders, senior leaders, or customers. Use the following tips and best practices to help you prepare an effective presentation.

Preparation 

Get clear on your goals and the purpose of your presentation.

Be clear and specific about what you want to get out of the meeting, then frame the discussion with that goal in mind. For instance, “We need two engineers who have worked in this industry before,” instead of “We need more resources.” 

Seek input and set expectations.

Ask your manager or check with stakeholders regarding your presentation goals. Get their input and feedback ahead of time.

• If you were invited to present, make sure you understand in advance exactly what the requestor is hoping to gain from your presentation.

Create a delivery plan.

Identify a headline for each slide, which is the one-sentence main point that you are trying to illustrate with that slide.

• Create a couple of supporting points that add interest to the headline, such as anecdotes, charts, data, etc.

• Build in signposts. These are ways to clue the audience in to where you are going and what to expect with your presentation.

• Limit the number of slides in the main presentation. At the same time, consider creating backup slides for potential challenges, difficult questions, trade-offs, or alternative solutions. You can hide these backup slides at the end of your presentation if you don’t need them, or add them into your presentation if you do.

Be mindful of your audience’s time.

Invite only participants who need to be there.

• Send the presentation ahead of time, if possible.

Develop a strategy for making your presentation memorable.

Use stories and repeat key points. 

• Start with a strong intro. Spend extra prep time on the beginning. The beginning is when your nerves are typically the highest, and delivering the introduction successfully can help you quickly gain confidence.

Practice

Guide your audience through your presentation.

Help them notice what you notice, and transition between slides by using phrases like “Building on this point . . .” or “As I mentioned before . . .”

Do a mock presentation with your team.

If there will be more than one presenter, coordinate what each person will cover and how you will manage handoffs.

• Practice a question-and-answer (Q&A) session, anticipating the kinds of questions your participants might ask so you are prepared with a quick and confident response. In addition, practice what you will say if you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to.

• Be prepared to run the whole meeting yourself. If a co-presenter fails to show up, are you prepared to step in?

Schedule time to practice.

• Once you’ve outlined what you want to say, practice it—ideally in front of a mirror—or record yourself. This may help you identify awkward phrasing that could be improved and other issues.

Be prepared for surprises.

Show that you can adapt and that you know your subject matter. 

• If time runs short, can you quickly summarize the key points?

• Can you pivot the content according to what is most important to your audience?

Presentation and pace

Get right to the point.

Identify what problem you are solving and state it up front.

• Tell the audience why you are in the room with them and what you will be covering.

• Lay down the ground rules. For example, how do you want to handle questions and comments? Will you take them throughout your presentation or afterwards?

Check your pace.

Be mindful of clues from your audience and adjust accordingly.

Follow up

• If appropriate, send a follow up email with summary notes, action items, and time frames.

• Debrief with your manager or key audience members on what they heard from the presentation.  Ask them what went well and what could have gone better.

• Review next steps.

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