Review Meetings

Hold review meetings at regular intervals to control project progress. Follow these tips to ensure that your review meetings are effective:

• Have an informal discussion with your key team members before the meeting.
• Do a detailed project review on your own – carefully review all the tasks that need to be completed in the next three to six weeks. By doing so you may identify issues that need to be discussed during the meeting.
• Now circulate a meeting agenda to all participants.
• If decisions need to be made at the meeting, make sure that the person with the authority to make the decisions attends the meeting.
• Start a meeting by specifying its objectives.
• Quickly compare the project’s current status with the original project plan.
• Follow the initially established agenda and avoid straying from it.
• Ensure that the meetings are not too long and make efficient use of the participants’ time.
• Always end by recapitulating the decisions made, and the next steps.

Write a meeting report and circulate it within 24 hours of the meeting. Depending on the situation, you might want to write a detailed report or just a simple list of decisions that were made, and actions to be taken.