COMP 208/214/215/216 Lecture 2 Teams and Meetings
Lifecycle of a Typical Team • • • •
Forming Storming Norming Performing
•
Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing, Bruce Tuckman 1965
Forming • Liaise with colleagues to form your team • Return the filled registration form to me • Incomplete teams will be completed by me tomorrow. Missing people will be assigned a team at random.
Forming • The team is formed • Members introduce each other, and learn about each other’s skills and personalities • They discuss the team mission, and make a preliminary assessment of duties and allocation of tasks.
Forming • 4 or 5 • Talk to Strangers! • Bigger is not Better
Storming • The team gets down to real work under pressure, and meets its first crisis • There are differences of opinion about what to do, or about how or when to do it, or the quality of what is done • Sometimes the differences are resolved peacefully, sometimes not • Always best to discuss any differences
Norming • Resolution of differences requires agreement as to team norms and practices • Norms are rules or standard procedures for how a team does things • They will possibly differ from one team to the next
Performing • Once team members are agreed on their goals and how they will work together, they can get down to doing the work • Ideally, each team should reach this stage as soon as possible
Meetings • Meetings are important: – They ensure that everyone knows what is going on – They provide opportunity for discussion – They foster commitment as a group
• Group meetings are an integral part of this course: groups are required to meet
weekly
There are different kinds of meetings: • Meetings vary according to their – size – formality – purpose
• Most of what follows applies to all types of meetings: where specific I shall deal with small meetings intended to review progress on a project
Meeting roles • Chair: – responsible for calling the meeting, setting the agenda, controlling the meeting. You may want to – responsible for recording the business of the try meeting (minutes), circulating the meeting notes. different • Participants: roles at – responsible for relevant agenda items; making different constructive contributions. meetings
• Secretary:
In small meetings, the secretary and chair are participants as well.
Purpose • A meeting should have a clear purpose at the outset, and should not be distracted from that purpose. • Your meetings are mainly to: – Report progress so that everyone knows what is happening – Decide what needs to be done, and who is going to do it – Agree on a set of actions for the forthcoming week
Before the meeting • The chair: – Prepares an agenda – Circulates the agenda to the participants
• The participants – Before the agenda is produced, ask the chair to include items they want to discuss – Read the agenda when it arrives – Prepare for any items they need to report on – Think about other items they can contribute to – Tell the chair if they cannot attend for any reason
Meeting:
The Agenda - I
1. Apologies 2. Minutes 3. Matters Arising
• Heading – Date, time and place of meeting • It is good to meet at a regular time and place each week • This can be electronic, teleconference
– Purpose of Meeting
• Standard items – – – –
Apologies for absence Minutes of last meeting Action points from last meeting Matters arising
The Agenda - II • New Items: – Typical for your meetings: • Review of plan in the light of reports • Identification of tasks • Allocation of responsibility for tasks
– Other issues people want to raise • General progress • Difficulties • Requests for support and advice.
4. Review of plan 5. Tasks for coming week 6. Allocation of Tasks
The Agenda - III
7. Any Other Business 8. Next Meeting
• Closing Items – Any Other Business • Last minute additions, since agenda was produced
– Date and Time of Next Meeting • Fix a date and time which makes it possible for everyone to attend • Also agree who will chair the next meeting and who will be secretary.
During the Meeting (Chair) • The Chair should follow the agenda in order. – Ask someone to start the item (e.g. report their progress) – Invite comments – Ensure the discussion remains focussed, and that everyone stays calm – Force a decision if necessary – Summarise what has been agreed – Move onto the next item
During the Meeting -Secretary • For each agenda item, the secretary should: – Note what was reported – Note what was agreed – Note any actions that were identified, and who will carry them out.
Do not record too much detail. We don’t need a blow-by-blow account of the discussion, just a record of the conclusions.
During the Meeting - All • • • • • •
Stick to the agenda! Be constructive Stick to the point Be considerate - don’t try to score points Be reasonable Make a note of the agreed actions for which you are responsible
After the Meeting • The secretary writes the meeting note
(minutes)
• The secretary circulates the meeting note to all invited to the meeting (and to the project monitor) • Everyone reads the meeting note • Everyone tries to carry out the actions they were assigned.
Meeting Note - I • The meeting note is primarily to record actions that have been agreed. – It is not a verbatim record of the
discussion.
• It should be kept succinct: – It should be as short as possible, while conveying the required information.
Meeting Note - II • Heading – Gives the date, time and place of the meeting
• Present – Records who was present at the meeting
• Apologies – Anyone invited who could attend and said so.
Meeting Note - III • For each agenda item:
A simple factual record is what is needed
– Reported: What was reported about the item, and who reported it – Agreed: What if anything the meeting agreed about the item – Action: What was agreed should be done, and who agreed to do it
• Date, time and place of next meeting.
Team Wiki & Meeting Notes • Each team will be provided with a wiki • You need to upload notes of each team meeting to your team wiki – Within 3 working days of each meeting – It is OK to type the notes directly into your wiki.
• Your project monitor will check on your progress via your team tools
Summary • Prepare for the meeting. – Know what you need or want to say when you arrive • Stick to the business of the meeting
• Make sure everyone knows what was agreed and what they are meant to do after the meeting. – Carry out the actions given to you.
• Upload meeting notes to your team wiki each week.
