Meeting Management

Abstract

Meetings play a significant role in existing and upcoming projects. They are one of the main keys for group decision making, communications and problem-solving.

Multitudinous variables answerable exist for creating profitable and productive meetings where the decisive key is positive collaboration towards action.

The first part is mainly directed for management portfolio review meetings which are considered as overwhelming, time-consuming and unproductive.

In conjunction with the need for the portfolio review meetings, the four types of meetings are mentioned to determine the format and urgency of the assemble.

The second part briefly describes all steps that assure constructing well-organized meeting, from preparing, starting through conducting, closing the meeting until following up after. The conducting part is extended with the several tools and techniques (displayed thinking, affinity diagram, PMI etc.) which enable engagement of employees and lead to effective problem-solving. The explanation of the usage of the tools and techniques, as well as when it is appropriate to use them, is mentioned.

Finally, the financial investment in meetings is considered and the three-stage model is presented to approach for maximizing the potential of meetings..

Portfolio Review Meetings

The management of meetings is an effortful and challenging process, especially for portfolio reviews What is more it is undeniable that portfolio review meetings are overwhelming, overdue and oftentimes unproductive.

Therefore, selecting appropriate existing options aligned with meeting procedure and presented techniques allows performing this sort of assembly more efficiently and effectively.

Firstly, it is worth to mention that different kinds of organizations have a different point of view for what purpose the meeting is organized. For some, the main plan is to review the project status of all existing projects in the portfolio, whereas for some the objective is to evaluate each project to update the priorities and procedures. Keeping in mind this information, the four different options for conducting the meeting are proposed.

Option 1 is intended to review all in-flight projects, their priorities, key values, and status. The options are mostly recommended inside the organization where the balance between all the projects has remained and no action is required.

Option 2 is meant to review only projects in the portfolio with high-risk value. It allows detecting possible emergency and uncertainty, therefore enables the change of priorities in certain projects before the failure comes.

Option 3 is based on reviewing all projects in the portfolio with high-level quality to update all the project priorities.

Option 4 is found on reviewing portfolio scenarios that are accurate to the current business needs to be followed, and therefore the selection of the most recommended and valuable portfolio scenario for the organization ..

The final decision of the selected options belongs to the main owner of the portfolio. However, it is asserted that option 4 seems to be the most convenient approach for conducting portfolio meetings. Instead of misusing the focus on individual projects, the governance team reviewing the portfolio scenarios previously compiled by the portfolio team. Different scenarios support different goals that play a crucial role in the current business. [ref]

With the following scenarios, the meeting can be performed more efficiently and making the decision is predicted to be less time consuming and profitable.

The range of portfolio scenarios presented in the meeting should include[]:

• Growth Scenario,
• Customer Growth Scenario,
• Market Growth Scenario,
• Reduced R&D Spend Scenario,
• Balanced Portfolio Scenario.