During the course of a software project, there are so many different ongoing issues and sub-projects. As a result, there are so many matters that the project managers and leads do not know about; with some of the issues only getting highlighted when they are major issues or when they are close to bursting out in flame. There are team members who need information from other team members or need some help from outside the team, and they are not sure how to highlight this information.
How to handle such issues ? How do team managers and leads figure out all these and work out an ongoing formula to get more information, to provide information back to the team and to the layers in the team, and so on ? The answer to this is a version of the status meeting. This may be one meeting, or this may be multiple meetings, this may be a meeting the project manager has with the team, or this may be individual meetings that the leads have with their respective teams; or it may be a combination of all of these.
So, meeting(s) may be setup in the team on a regularly periodic basis. In such a meeting, you would have team members / leads / managers interacting on a structured basis, with issues being brought up, upcoming schedule milestones being highlighted, and so on. However, in a project, there are almost issues that may be on fire, or there may be other items that may be going on, where team members or leads may feel that it is more important for them to be present rather than attending these status meeting (this may be highlighted even further if the person has not had much going on in the previous meetings).
However, once this kind of a feeling comes in on the team, it can cause huge problems for the project manager(s) and the leads, since this meeting is extremely important for the team. As a result, right from the start, it is important to emphasize to the team regarding the need and necessity for this meeting for everyone in the team; that it would take something real critical to prevent people from attending this meeting. Some teams I know even make sure that if somebody is not attending the meeting or has not attended the meeting, they need to talk to a lead or a manager and explain the need for doing so.
And yet, there are cases. Team members visualize that this meeting is important for the manager, not for the individual team member; and it would not matter too much if they do not attend; or that they may something on their plate that is so critical that they can skip this one meeting. That last part may be true, but depending on the team dynamics and the maturity of the team members, deciding whether a team member can skip or not may be a decision that may be with the team member or with the manager.
How to handle such issues ? How do team managers and leads figure out all these and work out an ongoing formula to get more information, to provide information back to the team and to the layers in the team, and so on ? The answer to this is a version of the status meeting. This may be one meeting, or this may be multiple meetings, this may be a meeting the project manager has with the team, or this may be individual meetings that the leads have with their respective teams; or it may be a combination of all of these.
So, meeting(s) may be setup in the team on a regularly periodic basis. In such a meeting, you would have team members / leads / managers interacting on a structured basis, with issues being brought up, upcoming schedule milestones being highlighted, and so on. However, in a project, there are almost issues that may be on fire, or there may be other items that may be going on, where team members or leads may feel that it is more important for them to be present rather than attending these status meeting (this may be highlighted even further if the person has not had much going on in the previous meetings).
However, once this kind of a feeling comes in on the team, it can cause huge problems for the project manager(s) and the leads, since this meeting is extremely important for the team. As a result, right from the start, it is important to emphasize to the team regarding the need and necessity for this meeting for everyone in the team; that it would take something real critical to prevent people from attending this meeting. Some teams I know even make sure that if somebody is not attending the meeting or has not attended the meeting, they need to talk to a lead or a manager and explain the need for doing so.
And yet, there are cases. Team members visualize that this meeting is important for the manager, not for the individual team member; and it would not matter too much if they do not attend; or that they may something on their plate that is so critical that they can skip this one meeting. That last part may be true, but depending on the team dynamics and the maturity of the team members, deciding whether a team member can skip or not may be a decision that may be with the team member or with the manager.
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