Projects & Meetings – Crucial to Your Evil Success?

Everybody has them, even freelancers. You have to meet with clients, prospects, or vendors. If your company is larger, add in staff meetings in all their various forms. You can love them or you can hate them, but you generally can’t skip them.

I am a project coordinator. This means lots of interaction with everyone in my company, some more than others.

Yesterday, this meant that I chased managers around with a notebook, until I received commitments on their quarterly project deadlines. Literally. I actually ended up following one manager to a coffee shop, waited for the team to toss back their shots of wheat grass (next time I might try some – it was pretty alluringly emerald green), and asked again. Persistence, thy name is project coordinator. Sometimes unfortunately.

Planning is like housework. Nobody notices it unless it’s not done right.

Likewise, meetings. Sometimes a 15 min chat helps you find out about a little snag that someone didn’t think worth mentioning, but which will affect 10 other people, and wind up causing an enormous brouhaha if you don’t fix it while it’s small.

Despite this, even I have my limits. I had more meetings this week than time at my desk. Granted, it’s the start of a new quarter, so, project-wise, it’s my busiest time. But not everyone knows that, and sometimes I think my co-workers are all wondering what the hell I do all day.

In any case, I’ve found that, among all the meetings you can have, there are only about 4 types that are worth attending.

The Company Meeting. Generally, space these out. Remind your employees of the big company goals. Reaching these goals is the aim of all of their day-to-day work and projects. For the sake of the children, please feed and water your people during this session if it’s over 20 minutes. Also, this is a very bad time to call someone out, whatever your level. Save that for a one-on-one.

The Meeting with Your Boss. I happen to have one of these every day. The meeting is beneficial to me, because my projects change quickly, and my boss’ feedback helps me to prioritize and to coordinate with the rest of my co-workers, so everything goes smoothly.

This would not work for everyone. The boss that can communicate that much, without any micromanaging, is rare.

The Meetings with Your Co-Workers. These are invaluable. Keep them informal, and a lot of useful information can be exchanged. Then, you’re more aware of what is going on in other parts of the company and you can make better decisions.

DANGER - don’t let productivity turn to chatter, and try not to get so comfortable with someone that you spill your guts – and all that confidential info from your finance (or whatever) meeting. My biggest problem with this is that I start weighing my co-workers feelings and preferences too heavily into my decisions. Consideration is good, but to excess, it can reduce your efficiency.

The Meeting with Your Vendors or Your Clients. I have a fair amount of meetings (usually phone) with vendors. I do not usually meet with clients, although those are also important. My favorite vendors are the ones who email, and promptly, but at times it’s quicker to get on the phone and hash things out.

What do you think, did I miss any?

Image credit: meetings, wheat grass, company meetings, your boss, conversation, & Abby on the phone.