{"id":12177,"date":"2013-05-20T08:15:54","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T15:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=12177"},"modified":"2013-05-20T09:21:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T16:21:46","slug":"not-another-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=12177","title":{"rendered":"Not another meeting!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"meetings\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In keeping with the topic of back to the basics, lets talk about Communication. \u00a0In my previous post I mentioned implementing weekly status meetings at my research center. \u00a0I bet as you read that you cringed a little. \u00a0No one likes more meetings…especially me! \u00a0In my case though it wasn’t “more” meetings…they didn’t have ANY!<\/p>\n

The first week at the new center I was called into random meetings to discuss the status of projects, PM implementation and how I could help. \u00a0The meanings were done in Spanish and even though I only understood about 50% of what was said I understood almost immediately that their main problem was lack of communication! \u00a0(That and they didn’t have any experienced PMs – see Back to the Basics blog)<\/p>\n

Let me go back a step… The research center specialized in Aerospace, Automotive and Mechatronics to name a few. \u00a0They had a small manufacturing center that a company such as Valeo or Bombardier would contract with to design and build an assembly system or something of that nature. \u00a0Every project that came in was unique and one of a kind. \u00a0The project team usually consisted of Mechanical, Electrical and Software Engineers, Manufacturing and Purchasing. \u00a0The PM was usually the Sr. Mechanical Engineer. \u00a0The ME would just pass off his drawings and parts requirements through a SW tool that they had just purchased the year before. \u00a0 Purchasing and the other members of the team would just use what was in the SW tool to work from there. \u00a0As you can imagine, this system didn’t work very well. \u00a0Everyone worked in a silo.<\/p>\n

To make things even worse, upper management had NO idea what was going on with these projects until they would get a call from a client screaming at them for being late and not communicating with them. \u00a0It was then that a meeting would be called and they would start talking about why the project was delayed etc…<\/p>\n

I bet you are shaking your head right now. \u00a0Seems so obvious right? \u00a0Are you screaming inside…”Be Proactive”, “Status Meetings”, “Team Meetings”, “Design Reviews”? \u00a0Well that is exactly what I did! \u00a0I implemented weekly team meetings to discuss the status of the project’s activities and the risks. \u00a0I also implemented weekly status report meetings with upper management. \u00a0Implementing meetings was the easy part…<\/p>\n

Executing them was a lot more difficult. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the PMs didn’t know how to lead a meeting. Well that was only the beginning. \u00a0They also didn’t like calling meetings or attending them. \u00a0Initially, if I didn’t actually schedule the meeting and then lead the meeting, they didn’t happen. \u00a0When I was helping with 6 projects this was manageable but not sustainable, when it grew to over 12 projects I asked for help. \u00a0Eventually, the PMO office reluctantly decided to schedule and lead the meetings. \u00a0I was grateful for the help but I was struggling with the upper management.<\/p>\n

I called for weekly status meetings for upper management. \u00a0My idea was that the PMs would report on the status of the project and discuss any problems they were facing or high risks items. \u00a0Upper management would help manage priorities, solve problems etc… Seemed reasonable to me but the Directors never attended! They would always send a “representative” but that person couldn’t make decisions and certainly didn’t have the power to set priorities.<\/p>\n

WOW! \u00a0Can you believe it? \u00a0You would think that upper management would want to know what’s going on right? \u00a0That they would want to be “proactive” so that they don’t receive calls from angry customers. \u00a0It was then that I realized that the “know it all” American had shown her ugly head. \u00a0I had “implemented” these meetings but I didn’t “communicate” their importance. I had “assumed” that my Mexican counterparts would communicate it for me.<\/p>\n

To try to resolve this I met with each Director individually and explained (in Spanglish) the importance of this meeting and their\u00a0attendance\u00a0and leadership. \u00a0I explained how this meeting should be used to prevent and manage issues before they became major problems. \u00a0I then asked about their schedules and together we came up with a day and time that worked reasonably well for everyone.<\/p>\n

Thinking that this may be the reason I was having such difficulty with the PMs and the PMO office I decided to meet with them as well to explain the importance of the weekly team meetings. \u00a0I bet you are asking…why didn’t you do that in the first place? \u00a0Well because of fear and incorrect assumptions. \u00a0I was VERY insecure about my Spanish and I assumed that my counterparts would be able to communicate for me. Well you know what they say about assuming….<\/p>\n

So what are the lessons to be learned from this long winded narrative? \u00a0First of all, its a reminder that meetings are necessary. \u00a0When not abused<\/em> they help with communication and problem solving. \u00a0Secondly, before you implement… communicate! \u00a0Even though my example is partially cultural it happens to all of us. \u00a0We often start things because they seem obvious to us but we don’t explain the reasoning to everyone. Taking the time to explain things at the beginning, although time consuming, often saves time in the long run! \u00a0Lastly, watch those ass<\/em>umptions…they will bite you in ass<\/em> in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In keeping with the topic of back to the basics, lets talk about Communication. \u00a0In my previous post I mentioned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1551,"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":[6,1,939],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","category-miscellaneous","category-change-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12177","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\/1551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12177"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12213,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12177\/revisions\/12213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}