project plan<\/a>, and come with a handy “Percent Complete” that will facilitate discussions around how each milestone is going. \u00a0Having the milestones listed on the agenda will help team members keep up to date on the things that they aren’t directly working on, but are directly affected by. \u00a0For example, your testing team may find it helpful to keep tabs on the status of the development milestones, since they are affected by the completion date for them; even though they are probably not involved in the day-to-day discussions with the Developers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Open Issues<\/h3>\n
While it may be easier to keep track of open items in a separate document or tracking system, it helps to keep all information in a single document when reporting status to your team. \u00a0People have a tendency ignore additional attachments, and you don’t want your Open Items to be missed, so it makes sense to take the time to copy\/paste the Active Open Items onto the Agenda so that all information is in the same place and easy to access for your team members.<\/p>\n
The trick here is to NOT solve the issues during the status meeting. \u00a0Remember – a status meeting is to discuss *status*, not to solve issues or debate solutions. \u00a0If a solution is required, schedule a separate meeting to work it out, and then discuss the outcome of that meeting (or series of meetings) in the next status call. \u00a0It will be very tempting to take advantage of the fact that everyone is together in the meeting to solve a problem, but it runs the risk of making the meeting go long, which disrupts everyone’s schedule, and can result in fewer people attending the next meeting. \u00a0I find that it makes sense to acknowledge that a discussion needs to take place, and either delegate to someone to schedule a meeting, or schedule the meeting yourself, then move on to the next topic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Upcoming Events<\/h3>\n
Are there any training sessions coming up? \u00a0Do you have a code deployment next week? \u00a0Is there a major deadline looming near? \u00a0List them here! \u00a0Make sure that everyone knows the dates, times, and locations of any events that are coming up in the next few weeks. \u00a0Nobody likes surprises, and Project Managers hate excuses. \u00a0Don’t let any important dates get missed simply because someone forgot to look at the Project Calendar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
New Issues\/Action Items<\/h3>\n
Things come up every day. \u00a0New issues and action items are bound to be a part of almost every status meeting. \u00a0Give yourself a place within your agenda to make sure that these get discussed and tracked in the minutes. \u00a0These items are moved to the “Open Items” section in the next Agenda to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It’s true, status meeting have a bad reputation; but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be turned around and made into something both effective and fun. \u00a0Sticking to an Agenda can really help end the Neverending-Status-Meeting-Saga that can waste hours of your team’s time, while still giving you time to connect with your team as a whole and get through the good times and the bad together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Status meetings have a tendency to get a bad reputation. \u00a0Many can feel that spending anywhere from a half-hour to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[856],"tags":[1101,412,64,701,1102,76,1100],"class_list":["post-10125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pmbok-process-monitoring-and-controlling","tag-agenda","tag-collaboration","tag-communication","tag-efficiency","tag-meeting","tag-schedule","tag-status"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10125"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10144,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions\/10144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/78454024-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>However, project status meetings are only as effective as the participation they yield, so it is important to make the status meeting efficient enough to encourage as many team members as possible to attend and contribute to the meeting. \u00a0The main failure of many status meetings is their inability to stick to the predetermined schedule. \u00a0When meetings consistently go long, it shows your project team two things: \u00a0that the host of the meeting is ineffective at managing time, and that the host does not respect anyone else’s schedule or time. \u00a0Meetings that consistently go 5, 10, or 15 minutes late create a ripple-effect that can turn someone’s entire day off kilter, since they could be stuck in the neverending cycle of starting a meeting 5 minutes late, which means it finishes 5 minutes late, and so on and so forth. \u00a0By doing your best to ensure that your Status meeting consistently starts and finishes on time, you will show your project team that you respect their time, as well as respecting their role in your project.<\/p>\n