PM: Manage the Seconds!

If you’ve had ANY experience managing projects you’ve realized that everyone on a project team was already busy with their “day job” prior to our project kicking off.

Said another way, leading a project requires that we vie for time on team members’ already tight calendars. One of the biggest objectives, in doing so, for the duration of the project, is ensuring we make best use of everyone’s time. The reality: as soon as a team member feels that any of their time is being wasted we’ll lose them (as we should).

To avoid this outcome, I constantly look for ways to shave time off everything I do. Seconds matter, as they add up to minutes, which add up to hours and so on.

One of the biggest time wasters relates to poor meeting management. Following are just a few things that I’ve found helpful in making the best use of everyones’ time in this regard:

• Consider the principle “if we (the PM) are on time, WE ARE LATE.” The PM needs to arrive to meetings early (prior to the start time). We need to ensure the room and/or video conference is setup and ready-to-go.  The PM is the greeter, welcoming everyone to the meeting and taking note of attendance to support “roll call.” And, finally, when the meeting is scheduled to start we are “already there.”
• What about those squatters? Our “start time” can be impacted by someone else using the meeting room we’ve scheduled. To address this, we can visibly hover outside the room a few minutes in advance of the meeting start time. And, if they aren’t wrapped up by the time our meeting is scheduled to start we must promptly and politely indicate to the group currently occupying the room that we are scheduled to start an important meeting “on the hour” and just stand there, with a smile, waiting for them to leave.
• Don’t let technology become an obstacle / time waster: Meeting attendees are often geographically dispersed, requiring the use of video conference services. Regardless of the platform (Webex, Zoom, etc.), it is important for the PM to spend time setting him/herself up in advance, testing and getting comfortable with the tool and its capabilities. If it isn’t clear that team members and meeting participants have used the tool previously we’ll want to request they get setup in advance of the meeting and encourage them to contact support with any issues.
• Allow no “awkward” silence (keep things moving): As the facilitator / driver for many of the project meetings it is important to maintain a balance between being respectful and courteous in conversations while keeping things moving forward – rapidly. That is, while it is important to allow time for people to interject before proceeding to the next topic we must not leave too much time…It is just as important to maintain momentum (and keep everyone awake) by confirming (asking if) everyone is OK on a topic, then moving on, after leaving only a brief (no more than 2-3 seconds) window of opportunity for people to jump in. If you should occasionally move on too quickly people can certainly pull you back. Keeping up the pace will ensure people remain engaged and respond promptly. Team members will soon realize that if they don’t pay attention, they shall be left behind (resulting in an embarrassing situation – for them 🙂 )!
• Assume a default meeting duration of 30 minutes. If/when it is anticipated that an hour (or 4) is required to cover a particular topic then book that time accordingly. Too often, however, meeting schedulers assume a default meeting duration of an hour (when much less time would do). I’ve found there are “some” on the team who are happy to “hang out / hide out” in the meeting room to burn off the hour (talk baseball, etc.) when they have more important things to do (which may or may not be related to our project). As such, if it is a routine check-in, focused question or topic, book only 30 minutes and drive participants to complete the conversation in that timeframe. Doing so gives people more time back at their desk to get work done!
• Strive to complete the meeting early, without rushing. For example, if I’ve scheduled a meeting for an hour, my goal is to complete that meeting in 40 minutes, or less. If I’ve booked a meeting for 30 minutes, my goal is to complete it in 20. Quite simply, we do NOT need to burn the full time of the scheduled meeting – unless absolutely necessary. Instead, we must be SUPER efficient and consistently demonstrate to the team that our goal is to make the very best possible use of everyone’s time. And, by striving to complete our meeting agenda early will leave time for the unanticipated curve balls that WILL come up.
• Finally, meeting time is NOT social time: The most important principle of all…Don’t schedule a meeting unless it is absolutely necessary. Could the topic be addressed in a quick 1-on-1 conversation, email or text? If so, reach out accordingly.

I’ve found that managing the seconds results in noticeable savings in time and energy which our team members REALLY appreciate! And, they’ll be much more eager to give us their time when we absolutely need it, since they’ve observed how efficient we are in using it.

In closing, if you are looking to improve PM capabilities in yourself, or organization, feel free to reach out so we can discuss how I can help!

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