Project Meetings - Getting people to pay attention

There aren’t many people who enjoy public speaking, and it is said that some fear it more than death itself. Whether you love running meetings or hate them, unfortunately they are a key part of the project manager's timetable, and ideally you need your team to be alert, participative and (at the very least) awake for the duration. Here are a few key tips to help you ensure your team are paying attention in your project meetings:

1. Ban laptops and phonesr
It might sound a little schoolmaster-ish, but taking the technology away from the class is one way to help people stay focussed. It’s increasingly hard to compete with Facebook, Pinterest and whatever else your team enjoy looking at, so ask people to leave their gadgets behind and instead get one person to take notes and then email them around.

2. Pick a good timer
There’s not much you can say that will win over a crowd at 8.30am, so schedule your meeting for a time when people will be most willing to listen. Avoid going back to back with another meeting, people do have limited attention spans, and don’t go for a slot where people will be eyeing the clock for home time or lunch.

3. Keep it coolr
Before the meeting starts, have a check of the temperature of the meeting room. Too hot and you’ll have a bunch of sleepyheads on your hands. Too cold and people will be grumbling and fussing with jackets all through the meeting.

4. Grab their attentionr
Be prepared with a strong, attention grabbing opener. Try to think of a funny anecdote, a joke or something interesting that will harness their focus. The first few minutes of your meeting time serve to set the tone for the whole meeting ongoing, so work hard to demonstrate that their attendance will be worth the effort.

5. Give them coffeer
In another bid to keep people focussed and awake, caffeine is the project manager’s best friend. Not only that, but according to research in the US, providing a warm drink makes people transpose the warm feeling to the person who gave them the drink, so it can boost your popularity stakes too.

6. Let them know how long it will ber
Meetings should never be more than an hour, people just can’t focus for that long, so set yourself a time limit and tell them from the outset just how ‘short’ the meeting will be. Knowing that there is a reasonable deadline to the meeting will produce a metaphorical sigh of relief from the assembled project team and will help them relax into the proceedings.

7. Tell them what it’s aboutr
Often it will just be a regular review meeting, but even then it is a good idea to work to an agenda. Set an allocated time for each agenda item and be ruthless about calling a halt to that topic as soon as you can after the time has passed. If certain team members seem very interested in discussing particular topics in depth, suggest that they form a working group and hold an additional meeting at another time.

8. Get them involvedr
Nobody wants to be lectured at and good project management is all about collaboration and co-operation as any project management course will advise you, so make sure there are plenty of opportunities for comments, questions and discussions. Tell them at the start when and how they will be expected to contribute to the meeting, as this will encourage them to pay attention so they know how to provide intelligent input that will benefit the whole project.