Collective Wisdom from the Experts 77
• Going off-topic. The current meeting has a specific purpose. Don’t lose
that focus. There will be things that come up that are important, but not
on topic. You may have too many nonessential people there, or you might
be missing key stakeholders necessary to solve this issue. Schedule another
meeting, or finish the current one and deal with the new issue at the end.
Remember to let the folks who don’t need to be there get back to work.
• Going over time. As a project manager, you expect your team members
to be able to estimate the amount of time it will take them to complete a
specific task. It will be detrimental to the schedule if they go too far over
the budgeted time in your meeting.
• Meeting too often. If you are following an agile methodology, quick daily
meetings are necessary. If not, be sure the meetings you hold cover infor-
mation or collect data that couldn’t be assembled in another way.
• Indulging long-winded participants. As the leader of the meeting, it is
your job to use a nonverbal “stop” (hold up the palm of the hand toward
the speaker) and smile. Say, “Your point is well taken, but in the interest of
time, we are going to need to move on” (or “hear from others,” or “come
back to this point later if there is time”).As you are the leader on the project, team members may feel they can’t speak
up about unproductive meetings. So, evaluate your own practices and see if
you can improve them on your own.