Running an Effective Meeting – A Checklist

The Checklist

Before the meeting:

• The meeting objective has been defined and shared with all participants.
• The meeting agenda has been defined and shared with all participants.
  - The agenda includes topics with owners.
  - The agenda includes time allocates for each topic.
  - The agenda is manageable given the time available for the meeting.
  - The agenda includes reasonable breaks.
  - The agenda enables participation, interaction, collection of feedback,
  decision making, and communication.
  - The agenda allows for Q&A.
• The meeting leader is aware of potential “off-topic” discussions that may happen and is prepared to address (or table) them.
• The meeting leader is aware of political or personality conflicts that may distract from the meeting and is prepared to address them (or reduce their impact).
• The meeting leader has determined the best, worst, and most-likely outcome from the meeting and has prepared for the worst in an effort to achieve the best.
• Critical participants have been identified and are confirmed for the meeting.
• Non-critical participants are aware that their attendance is optional.
• The meeting room has been scheduled.
  - The meeting room has the necessary technology (projector/screen, white board, flip charts, phone, Internet access).
  - The meeting room is suitable for the audience (size, layout).
• Conference Bridge has been scheduled and shared with all participants.
• WebEx has been scheduled and shared with all participant.
• For longer meetings, snacks and beverages have been ordered and supplied.

• Roles and responsibilities have been determined for the meeting (SME, Note Taker, Time Keeper, Judge)
• All participants are aware of their responsibilities in terms of Preparation for the meeting.
  - Assignments have been handed out.
  - Participants have confirmed that they have completed their assignments
• Hand-outs, slides, and examples have been prepared and reviewed.

In the meeting:

• Start the meeting on-time – do not go back for those who are late.
• Start the meeting with a review of the meeting objectives, the agenda, and roles and responsibilities.
• Allow participants to introduce themselves: “Does everyone know each other?”
• Ask participants if any other topics should be added to the agenda, if time allows.
• “Parking lot” items are captured for follow up meetings and discussions.
• Stick to the time schedule – allow “heated” discussions, but cut it off to keep on track with the agenda.
• Manage to the agenda, not personal agendas or politics.
• Encourage questions and discussions – the agenda should allow for this.
• Avoid “Death by Power Point.”
• Keep meeting notes, including action items.
• Capture owners for all action items and commitments for when the action items will be completed/delivered.
• Action Items and Next Steps have been determined and agreed on.
• Thank participants for their time and attention.
• End on time – respect everyone’s schedule.

After the meeting:

• Meeting Notes, with Action Items, have been captured and distributed.
• Meeting leader has followed up with participants and action items are complete.
• Follow meeting and discussions have been scheduled.
• Feedback from participants has been captured

Resources:

http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/RunningMeetings.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2006/sb20060927_259688.htm

http://www.suite101.com/content/running-an-effective-meeting-a59348

http://sabes.org/resources/facilitationguide.pdf

http://www.meetingwizard.org/meetings/running-effective-meetings.cfm

http://spac.ucdavis.edu/forms/leadership_tips/running_fun_and_effective_meetings.pdf

World-class PSO: Daily Thought

Day 2 of the TSIA Technology Services World Conference has wrapped up, and it was another day of idea sharing and generation. Some sessions were, of course, more valuable that others. Here are my top five "key take-aways" from today's session:

1. Professional Services within a product team (and probably any PSO) should be in the business of "Value Creation."
2. PS should drive overall business results. $1 of PS revenue should have a multiplier effect on the business through additional product and PS revenue.
3. PS needs to be part of the overall brand of the company - No Second Class Citizens
4. PS and Sales managers need to develop "Deal Attributes" that indicate when/if PS should be included in a deal. The two teams should work together to review major accounts and key deals to ensure the sales team is included when it should be.
5. AVOID true Packaged offerings. Sales is responsible for finding and qualifying PS leads, PS is responsible for educating those leads and proposing solutions, Sales is responsible for closing the deal, and PS is responsible for delivering. At the end of the day, Product Sales will struggle with matching the right PS offering and sizing it correctly leaving PS to clean up a potential mess. Additionally, for publicly traded companies, Package Offerings create VSOE challenges that must be considered.

I look forward to sharing more tomorrow.

World-class PSO: Daily Thought

Day 1 of this springs Technology Services World conference is complete. The day started with a "Value" workshop in which we discussed ways to quantify the value a PSO provides its customers and how to develop a services portfolio designed to add value. While we all agreed that we need to define offerings and services that meet the needs of our companies, the focus of this session was all about the customer.

Marc Lacroix from RTM consulting discussed the Value Model. Additionally, we discussed our teams readiness in terms of delivering value-added services. A lot of the concepts discussed in this session came from J.B. Wood's book, The Complexity Avalanche, (which I haven't read, but I have bought it, and it is next on my reading list).

In the afternoon, Thomas Lah, President of TSIA discussed the implications of Cloud Computing on TSIA members. My first impression is that Mr. Lah is concerned that Cloud Computing is hype that may or may not have a marketable effect on what we do. I got the impression that he felt that, at a minimum, it is a distraction that will make all of our jobs harder. (For instance, he compared the Oracle business margins to Salesforce.com's without acknowledging that SFDC is a growing business forging new paths. They are in investment mode, where as Oracle is a mature business in the top spot in its space.)

After his presentation, though, Mt. Lah brought executives from NetSuite, Oracle, EMC, and IBM who all agreed that Cloud Computing is game-changing and PSOs are poised to capitalize on the change if they think strategically about the needs of the customer base: Business Process Changes and Change Management, Data Migration, and Managed Services.

Cloud Computing and the PSO

I am going to take a break from the topic of the "Top 10 Qualities of a World-class Consultant." I know you are all chomping at the bit, but you'll have to come back next week for Quality #5.

Instead, I wanted to post a timely blog as a follow up to a PS Village Executive Breakfast session that I attended this morning. The topic was "Surviving and Winning as the IT World Moves into the Cloud." Russ Klein and Dick Csapler from The Aberdeen Group presented on the topic.

Russ and Dick spelled out the value proposition for IT moving hardware and software to the cloud. In a nutshell, the cloud provides businesses to apply the "right amount of [system] resources when they its needed." According to the guys from Aberdeen, processing power of client-server environments is starting to rival that of Mainframe environments, total cost of ownership is lower given that the Cloud providers own the responsibility of keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies and the investments in cap ex for IT managers is lower with the Cloud.

Start-up businesses are more like to build applications in the cloud, and enterprise businesses are moving less mission critical applications, data back-ups, and fail-over systems to the cloud.

The major concerns that were discussed centered on Privacy and Security and culture - how does an IT manager measure success and budget for supporting the business when they have no cap ex budget - or a significantly reduced budget. As Dick said, though, Amazon EC2 probably employees more systems, tools, and experts to ensure the highest level of quality than most businesses could afford to do themselves. As enterprises find success with the less critical apps, they are likely to start to move the more critical apps to the cloud, as well.

So where does PS fit in. Russ and Dick mentioned a number of new consulting opportunities that are coming available due to the advent of Cloud Computing. Consulting groups can provide services designed to:

1. Support the migration from "on premises" environments to the cloud
2. Assist in business and IT process re-engineering efforts to support applications that are now hosted in the cloud
3. Ensure legacy hardware is disposed of in an ecological manner and to assist businesses in developing a "Green IT" strategy
4. Ensure effective data mining from the old to the new environments

SaaS is one model for Cloud computing. In SaaS business, the products are often positioned as "self-service." As businesses move to a Cloud Computing model, however, more and more will reduce the IT staff and rely on PS teams to ensure that they have the right methodologies, can implement the solutions - including training, and can optimize and evolve their use of the tools available in a way that ensures business success. The focus will become less about "implementation" services - the Cloud providers will do that - and more about expert services that provide our customers with focus, experience, and expertise required to use IT solutions to achieve business results.

4. Asks Questions sesigned to Uncover the "Real" Pain, Not Just the "Stated" Pain.

Jean DiGiovanna of ThinkPeople refers to this as "staying curious," and this is a common theme in many sales and consulting training programs and books, particularly those that espouse a "solution-selling" approach. Powerful questions are, generally, open-ended questions designed to get the customer talking. They often lead to the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, deeper discussions, and more information.

So what does a a question that is designed to uncover the real pain look like? Let's look at an example. A consultant may ask a question this way:

"Do you have a process for managing employee time off?"

Or this way:

"How do you manage employee time off?"

Which do you think is likely to result in an answer that provides the ability to ask follow up questions and deeper insights?

Questions that start with "what" and "how" generally open discussions, giving the interviewee a chance to answer in detail. They generally provide a lot of information on which the consultants can build his investigations.

The first question, in contrast, is a closed question, and there is a real chance that the answer could be a simple "yes" or "no." What have you gained in this case...one person's opinion and no understanding why they gave the answer they did. Depending on the answer, the interview could be over with one question.

In many situations, symptoms of problems are visible, even obvious. Still, the root cause is not. A manager may feel, for instance, that that problem is that the staff is not accountable for their actions..."we need to fix the accountability problem." She may feel that because the work isn't getting done on time or quality standards aren't being met. A consultant may ask:

"Has the team's manager set proper expectations with the staff about deadlines and quality?"

The answer may simply be, "Well, of course." However, if the consultant asks:

"How does the team's manager set proper expectations with the staff about deadlines and quality?"

The interviewee will start to describe what she knows, and the consultant can determine for himself if expectations have been set properly. More likely, the consultant will determine what additional questions need to be asked and to whom.

As the consultant meets with the staff, management, and customers - asking powerful questions and learning about multiple perspectives - if may be clear that the management team has not properly set the staffs expectations. While at face value the root cause of the problem may appear to stem with the work effort of the staff, the real problem may be with a manager's approach.

The lesson: Do your homework. Get multiple perspectives. Look inside and outside the organization for the root case of the issues and pain they are experiencing. Don't assume the client knows what is going on...they often don't. This is not a slam on our clients, but let's face it...everyone is over worked and has too few resources to really assess every situation. If your clients knew what the real problem was, they'd be in a much better position to fix it themselves.

World-class PSO: Daily Thought

I had the good fortune to sit in on two sales training sessions delivered by Jeff Thull (Prime Resource Group) today. Jeff is the author of The Prime Solution, Mastering the Complex Sale, and Exceptional Selling.

Throughout the session, Jeff spoke to the team about what he calls the "Three Eras of Professional Selling." In the first error, the sales process was scripted, and sales professionals were not encouraged to "think" as Jeff says it. In the second era, sales pros hung their hat on the process of "Needs Analysis" to get through the day. In the third era, the era we are in today, sales professionals are encouraged to "STOP SELLING." This is one of Jeff's "Key Thoughts," as he calls them.

While I am not a sales person in the traditional session, as a consultant I am a sales professional. As I mentioned in an earlier post, consultants are always selling. Some of us sell in a traditional sense. We conduct pre-sales discovery with the goal of understanding the customers needs, challenges, pains - what ever you want to call them. We develop standard and custom consulting solutions for our customers. We write proposals and SOWs, and we work to close the deal. Others of us are selling during every meeting. We are working to ensure that the customer buys into the engagement format, the approach, the action plans, and the recommendations - even after the ink is dry on the contract.

What became increasingly clear to me throughout the sessions with Jeff is that the role of the sales professional has to stop selling and be a consultant. Now, I know there are countless books out there on the topic of "consultative selling." I recognize that my realization is a bit old news. Still, I witness situations every day where consultants in a selling role forget to be a consultant in pre-sales situations, or the pressures of the sales process result in a sales rep falling back into the Era 1 or Era 2 ways of selling. So, its worth repeating: To be a successful sales professional, one must be a consultant.

WORLD-CLASS SALES PROFESSIONAL = WORLD-CLASS CONSULTANT (and vice-versa)

3. Seeks first to understand, and then to be understood.

Consultants come to the table with a lot of knowledge and experience. Clients hire us because of our expertise, and they want to have their questions answered quickly. How many times has a prospective client asked you for pricing information or a high-level overview of a proposed solution before you have completed your discovery? More importantly, how many times have you obliged?

It is easy for a consultant to rush to judgment regarding the nature of the problem and, therefore, the solution. We may start talking prematurely about all the things we know and what can be done to improve the client's current state. People are most comfortable talking about themselves than asking solid, insightful questions about someone else. For this reason, we all fall into the trap and start providing a solution before we really understand the problem.

While the fact is that people like to talk about ourselves and what we know, world-class consultants have figured out how to use this fact to their advantage. They conduct an appropriate amount of research and planning before a call with a client and have a plan for what they want to learn. They ask insightful and open-ended questions designed to get the client or prospective client talking. They may interject with an anecdote or story where necessary to give the client confidence that the job they are being asked to do is not foreign, and they use active listening skills to verify that they understand what the client is saying.

Even when clients push for the answer or the price, world-class consultants resist the urge to go down that path too soon in favor of continuing with the investigation.

Only after a world-class consultant feels that he understands the current state and desired future state does he begin to share his observations and recommendations.