Have you ever found yourself being a part of a meeting or a workshop which is not well thought and is conducted extensively? The reasons could be many ranging from lack of thinking, poor planning, and frequent client escalations. This blog shall cover how to conduct effective meetings while ensuring the achievement of objectives.
How to start –
Organizing and conducting a meeting is a process in itself. The organizer should be clear in his head about the agenda of the meeting. The agendas could be well understood by interacting with the right stakeholders. It could be a Client or the Project Manager or even the Product Manager. The agenda can vary depending upon the challenges being faced at different levels. The issues can be categorized based on a particular module clearly stating the stage which needs more attention.
Let us take an example, where the first version of the ABC module is released for the client on the testing environment. The client’s team has attended the Module demo given by the Product Manager and has come across some UX related concerns after having a hands-on experience on the module which could become complex if not discussed now. So Agenda here becomes – Discussion on UX related concerns on ABC Module.
What comes next after Agenda –
Once the agenda is set, respective stakeholders for participation should be taken into account. The stakeholders from the client side can be confirmed by getting over a quick call with the client who initiated the email with the requirement to schedule a call. Once you have clarity on client side stakeholders, you can move on and share the call agenda with your team and get hold of respective stakeholders after consulting with either the Project Manager or the Product Manager. Once you have the list of stakeholders with you, send a formal calendar invite.
Drafting Calendar invites –
Different companies use different tools while sharing the Calendar invite. Listing down the tools which can be used for sharing the Calendar invites:
- Google Calendar
- Microsoft Outlook
- Apple Calendar
- Microsoft Exchange
- TimeTrade
- IBM Notes
- Silverline Calendar
For our understanding, we shall take an example of Google Calendar. It is one of the many G-Suite tools that are available to users with a Gmail account. It helps in sharing the details of the call like Agenda, Location, Time and Date, Mode of Communication links with the intended stakeholders.
On the top right corner, you will find an icon which is third from right side named Google Apps. Click on it, you will find Google Calendar. Once you are inside, you need to pick the date and time on which you want to schedule the meeting. Click on “more options” from the Popup box.
- Fill in the needed details like Title which should be the Agenda of the call. In our case, we will mention “Discussion on UX related concerns on ABC Module”.
- Check the Date and time. In case of a different time zone of the client, make sure you mention both time zones (Client’s and yours) to avoid confusion.
- Add Location should ideally have the name of the portal to be used for communication
- Choose Conferencing Mode as per your convenience.
- In the Description segment, add agenda of the call highlighting the points to be discussed using the bullets points. Mention the Virtual Call Link explicitly here to avoid confusion.
- Add Guests segment shall have the email IDs of all the stakeholders to join the team and press the “Save” button to share the invite with others.
Note: If you are doing it for the first time, make sure you send a dummy Calendar invite to just yourself with all relevant details and ensure if the links are working fine. - During Call and Summarising the Call with a MoM (Minutes of Meeting)–
Being a good listener is the key for a Business Analyst to capture as many details as possible during the call. Make sure you have noted down all the points including both the agreed upon and the ones that further need to be informed to the client after the call. Make sure you draft the MoM by the End of the day so as to keep everyone informed on the progress of the call.
