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ences in a nonthreatening, private, and hopefully productive environment. Sufficient agreement on at least a portion of the issue must be reached and the issue already defused before a core agreed position is brought forward to the whole team. |
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During the conduct of team meetings, it is sometimes observed that a few individuals, either because of their personalities or their positions or both, dominate the discussion, usually to the detriment of other, more reticent team members. Although the project leader is responsible for allowing all individuals sufficient air time to fairly present their cases and provide their perspective, the project leader is the gate keeper of available time and must gently but firmly redirect the discussion to provide an opportunity for other team members to contribute their opinions as well. Handling this situation must be done somewhat delicately, particularly since some individuals find it difficult to cogently articulate their feelings in a team setting. Often, their reasons appear quite valid, at least to the team members, i.e., they might be shy, they might be junior members of the team, they might not want to go up against what appears to be the growing team consensus, or even worse, they might feel that the project leader has abrogated responsibility and given up control of the discussion allowing a free-for-all with clear winners and losers. It is critical to ensure that, during the team meeting, the discussion is open and factual and is not allowed to drift too far from the agenda item, that a good exchange of opinion is allowed and even encouraged, particularly if there are dissenting views, and that the project leader not permit the discussion to degrade to a level of personal attack between team members. |
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To accomplish this, the project leader must concentrate efforts to ensure that the dynamics of the meeting run smoothly and be aware of the verbal and nonverbal signals that are sent. Of course, while concentrating efforts on running the meeting and keeping a pulse on the meeting dynamics, the project leader must also accurately capture the myriad of key meeting outcomes which need to be shared with the organization, i.e., problems which have been identified, solutions which have been recommended, decisions which have been taken, dissenting opinions, agreed to next steps and milestones, individual responsibilities, timetables, etc. Quite a monumental task. Either the project leader takes minutes of the meeting or preferably requests that a team member serve as the meeting secretary. If the latter approach is agreed to by the team, the project leader should insist that this task is shared on a rotating basis by all team members. |
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It is absolutely critical that team meetings begin and finish on time so that team members can get on with their other tasks and duties. The project |
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