The PureProject Group Newsletter
Volume 1, Issue 1, January, 2003
Hello and welcome to the inaugural issue of the PureProject Group's monthly Project Management Newsletter. We're here to provide information and helpful tips on project management and related fields to small businesses and solo workers.
This is an opt-in newsletter; details on subscribing are included at the end of the newsletter. Information on how to unsubscribe is also covered.Feedback and suggestions are welcome. Please tell us what you think and help us make this newsletter useful to you. You can reach us at: editor@pureproject.com
In this Issue:
This month, the newsletter is focused on organizing and running meetings. I'm sure each of you has walked out of a meeting more than once thinking "boy, that could have gone better" or "yuk, was that meeting a waste of time". With our basic tips, your clients and teams will walk out of meetings energized and excited.
January Table of Contents
- Topic of the Month -Successful Meetings
- Helpful Tips & Resources - Meeting Agenda Templates
- Ask Debbie - Better Note Taking
- What's Up with Us - Rate Setting and Contracts Seminar
- Subscribing and Other Details
Topic of the Month - Successful Meetings
Each month, we'll provide you with helpful information on project management topics. For more information on this month's topic, check out our website at www.pureproject.com.
Most of us spend almost as much time complaining about meetings as we do attending them. Too many meetings are boring, a waste of time or even downright painful. Your teams and even your clients may grumble and moan their way through meetings, or worse yet, they may mutiny, refusing to attend any meetings.
Despite all this bad press, meetings can be a great way to solve problems, come up with ideas and move projects along. So, how do you get great value out of meetings? Here are the best of the PureProject Group's Rules for Great Meetings.
- Great meetings have a purpose. If you call a meeting to solve a problem or discuss an opportunity, then by the end of the meeting you should have either resolved the problem or identified the next steps that will get you close to resolution.
- Create an agenda. Even a ten minute check-in meeting needs structure. An agenda tells everyone what to expect in the meeting and when the meeting will be over. An agenda also documents what topics will be covered and who will lead which part of the discussion.
- Be prepared. Wasting people's time while you run to get documents or make copies is downright rude! Being prepared says you value people's time. Make sure participants have time to read or review relevant documents. Don't dump a 100-page document on your team an hour before a meeting and expect useful comments and feedback.
- Take useful notes. Don't try to write down every word out of every person's mouth. Try to focus on the big picture, document key decisions and next steps. Your notes will be more organized and your hand will hurt less this way.
- Next steps and action items need owners. Don't just assume that someone will follow-up on an item. Make sure to go over the action items and next steps at the end of the meeting and assign completion or follow up dates to all the tasks. Confirm these agreements when you distribute the meeting notes.
- Meeting notes need to be distributed within one day (that's 24 hours) of the meeting. Otherwise, everyone will forget everything they agreed to.
- Check in with action item owners. Don't just assume people will deal with the issues they took on in a meeting. People may agree to anything, just to get out of a meeting. Make sure to check in regularly, otherwise, you'll have to call another meeting to review the next steps you set up in the first meeting.
For more helpful information on running meetings and lots of other fun project management "stuff" visit the articles section of our website: www.pureproject.com/articles. We've also got a free meeting agenda template on the website: www.pureproject.com/templates.
Helpful Tips & Resources: Meeting Agenda Templates
Each month in our Helpful Tips & Resources section, we provide hands-on software and project management tips and resources related to the topic of the month.
This month, since the topic is meeting management, we're visiting the Microsoft template site. Microsoft offers a huge number of free templates for use with their tools. They provide several meeting agenda format templates. Though you'll eventually want your own customized format, the Microsoft templates are a good place to start. Nothing fancy here, but they can be a time saver and can kick start your efforts at customization. Here's the link to the agenda templates:
http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/ct134.aspAnd here's the link to the home page for the Microsoft Template Gallery:
http://search.officeupdate.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/
Ask Debbie
This is the place for you to ask me, Debbie Lefkowitz, PureProject Group Principal, questions about project management. Send your project management questions to questions@pureproject.com
Since, this is the first issue, I'll "seed" this section with a question I've been asked many times.
Q: Whenever I have to take notes in a meeting, I always miss things. The conversation goes too fast for me to keep up, or I get interested in the topic and forget to pay attention to my note taking.
A: Well, we don't have much advice for excess absorption in the topic at hand. You might set up a flashing graphic to appear on your computer screen every five minutes, as a visual cue to keep writing things down.
As for keeping up, here we do have some helpful tips:
- Use a laptop for note taking. It will save you time later, typing is usually faster than writing notes by hand, and you can set things up in advance in order to make note taking easier. Don't forget to bring your power cord!
- Make sure you have a digital copy of the agenda loaded on your laptop before the meeting starts. Save the agenda under a new name so you don't lose your empty "agenda" template. Make sure the name fits the topic of the meeting, so you can find the file later.
- Don't stop taking notes to run your spell checker or check on grammar. You can do this later, right now; your job is to get things down on paper. Editing can come later, when you have more time.
- Don't try to write down every word out of every person's mouth. Try to focus on the big picture, document key decisions and next steps.
- Play close attention to dates. Anytime someone says something will be done or a decision will be made by a certain date or time, write it down! That way, you'll have the notes ready when they claim they never made such an agreement.
- Set your Microsoft Word file up to make typing and navigating fast. One approach we've used is to format each agenda topic in one of the default heading styles and use these headings to speed up navigation within the document. Follow the instructions below and you can easily jump from heading to heading within your document.
Tip 6 is a bit tricky, but worth it. At the bottom right corner of your Microsoft Word Program are two funny little arrows and a circle. See them? They're right below the scroll bar, that thing you use to scroll down your page. Click on the circle with your left mouse button and look at the dialog box. These are Microsoft Word's Select Browse Object controls.
Select the Browse by Heading icon. That's the little page with indented numbers. It's three squares from the left on the bottom row. After you've done this, your screen will display the next heading in your document.
Now here's the cool bit; because you selected Browse by Heading, you can jump from heading to heading in your document by using the little blue arrows above and below the circle at the bottom right of the screen.
Use this trick when you want to move at lightening speed through your Agenda or your Meeting Notes headers! You can also use this function to browse by page, document section, or edits, among others. Just follow the steps above, but make the appropriate selection in the Browse Object controls dialog box.
Just in case you need a Microsoft Certified approach, here's a link to the Microsoft tutorial on the Browse Object Controls box:
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/2002/articles/pwWordNavigate.aspxWhat's Up with Us?
This is the place to get information on upcoming classes and speaking engagements by PureProject Group staff.
Rate Setting and Contracts Seminar
Join PureProject Principal Debbie Lefkowitz for a seminar on setting rates and preparing project budgets. We'll show you how to set rates that make you money and still get you the work. We'll provide you with a handy-dandy Microsoft excel template all set up for you to calculate your own rates. We'll also cover bid creation and the basics of a good contract and provide you with a sample services contract. All this for only $25.00!
Seminar Details
Date: February 4th, Tuesday
Time: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: Fort Mason Center, Building XX, Room XX, Address, San Francisco, CA
Cost: $25.00
Ready to sign up? Fill out the form below or send an email to seminar@pureproject.com for more information and enrollment details!