Team Meetings
Meetings are pretty much unavoidable. They can be a
frustrating waste of time or a productive way of fostering teamwork and team
spirit. Making team meetings effective is a major test of your leadership
skills. The key to a productive meeting is to involve everyone without letting
anyone hijack the agenda. Prepare agendas in advance with input from the team.
Regardless of your team structure, someone should always take minutes and
distribute them to the team (consider having a rotating secretary).
Team and progress meetings should be held at
least once every two weeks to keep everyone current. Ask everyone to come
prepared. Start meetings on time and keep them moving; people often lose their
focus after a few minutes if they are not engaged. Encourage everyone to have a say, but ask
them to keep it relevant and brief. Be sure meetings don't degenerate into
arguments with finger pointing, me-too-ing or "off-topic"
discussions.
The point of the meeting is to keep to the
task at hand. You may need to take a group or a topic off-line, as it were, and
get it resolved in a smaller meeting. Ask people to turn their cell phones and
instant messaging off. Nothing is more distracting in a meeting than having a
cell phone belt out an obnoxious ringtone when the team is deep in conversation
about solving a problem. Pulling the team back together after an interruption
like that can be difficult and time consuming.
Be sensitive to schedules during crucial production phases.
A pizza lunch may be a lot more effective than an entire afternoon off-site if
deadlines are looming. Do the big celebrating after the product has shipped!
Match the Meeting to Its Purpose
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MEETING TYPE
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CHARACTERISTICS
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Team: Regular
schedule to update the entire team
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Gives
everyone a chance to hear information at the same time and give feedback.
Done right, weekly team meetings strengthen the team.
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Subgroup: Regular schedule to
update subgroups; should occur after weekly team meeting.
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Helps
those not at full team meetings. Doesn't require the team leader.
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Update: Timed to completion of
milestones and other major project events
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Helps
distribute off-cycle information. Opportunity for team building and
recognizing achievements.
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One-on-one: Extremely useful for
many purposes including establishing and/or reinforcing leader/team member
relationships
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Can
be formal (often negative) or informal. May cover any project or address
personal issues including confidential and/or HR matters
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Review: Can be used to review
projects, processes, proposals and production
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Useful
for examining and improving work methods and processes. Allow for some "open
discussion" time. Notify attendees in advance if you expect them to
bring anything to the meeting
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Presentation: Can be a subgroup
activity, rehearsal for formal team presentation, a company-wide presentation
or vendor demo.
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Team
may be presenting or be asked to review materials or a proposal. Schedule a
post-presentation meeting to assess how things went or discuss implementation
of new procedures or tools.
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Debriefing: Should not devolve into a finger-pointing
session! Should be a thorough and open analysis of the project, whether
things went wrong or not.
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This
is a crucial exercise, especially if the team is permanent. Be sure people
who bring problems also bring solutions. Keep the meeting civil and as
positive as possible.
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Kick-off
and Wrap Parties: When project starts and finishes. Be sure to allot budget for both.
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Be
responsive to the team. By the time the project is over, you'll know what
they like!
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Support Your Supporters
 Just like in any MMO, it's important to have a network of
people you can rely on for support. In many cases, you need a good mixture of
people to make it work. All too often, groups are advertising in open channels
in need of a healer, but there are never enough to go around. Building a strong
relationship with one or more healers can give you the inside edge to being
able to put that team together, and open up the opportunity to tackle more of
the in-game encounters. Even if it means making some concessions, it is worth
keeping the healers happy, because you will need them.
The same goes for the production department in a large
entertainment software company that just moved offices. Everyone has been told
to wait until IT hooks the computers back to the network. Your team is on a
tight deadline but because you've got a great relationship with IT (and you had
the sense to talk to your contact before the move), your team's machines were
hooked up first. Good relations with your company's IT group will satisfy both
your team's needs and corporate requirements, and make people happy.
Making IT feel welcome in your area instead of treating them
like flunkies can mean a big difference in your level of support. People are
people, no matter what they do for a living. Sure, a member of your team might
be able to hook up everyone's computer in two seconds flat, but if you have to
follow procedures, it never hurts to be on the good side of whichever
department supports your technical needs.
If time and budget permit, take advantage of IT training
sessions. Whatever technical solutions you need for your team, invest in the
most appropriate and reliable technology and be sure everyone is trained in its
proper use. Sometimes being able to troubleshoot before calling IT can save
time and chargebacks (and keep your group from getting a reputation for being
helpless and whiny).
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People keep writing about how to manage a team better, but since I'm not a manager myself, I could really use an article on how to be managed. Especially: how to deal with my personal perception of my managers doing a poor job. The most important question is, in my opinion: how do I tell whether I'm a reformer or a troublemaker?
Assume I'm right in a given situation -- how do I make my boss listen to me at all, let alone agree with me? How do I deal with "false agreement", when manager agrees to introduce certain solution, but then sabotages the actual implementation thereof, either by inaction or contradictory decisions?
What do I do when my boss complains about overall quality of my work but refuses to give actual qualification (e.g. he keeps saying "your concept art is ugly", but never says "there's too much red in this picture")?
How do I confront a boss who's clearly doing a bad job? I used to have a boss who would come to the office at 2pm. There was a weekly meeting scheduled for 12:30pm, but it was never held, because the boss was never present. Clearly, someone should have talked to him about it, but how do you do that without getting fired?
How do I deal with coworkers who complain about their superiors in private, but refuse to speak openly about their issues, because they "don't want to lose their jobs"? How do I make my coworkers more active without appearing to be trying to take over?
What do I do when there's a genuinely good idea that requires every single person on the team to change their habits just a little? What if I'm tasked with making sure the idea works as intended, but I'm not allowed to require anyone to do their part?
How do I get around my superior's quirks? I mean, managers are just people, and people are never perfect. I used to have a boss who was some 190cm tall, with low, loud voice and intimidating personality. He almost never answered e-mail. And he was perfectly capable of mocking his employees publicly when they failed to meet his expectations. How do you deal with issues like this in a civilized manner that doesn't turn the team into a powder keg?
Most people I've worked with so far have a simple solution: they just don't care about their work. At least that's what they say. I would send them a link to some good article on the matter, but I don't have any.
Excellent article.