Meetings
It’s imperative that you take detailed notes in meetings because it’s impossible to remember everything that’s said and by whom. Note taking is the best way to ensure that important information is documented.
Your first consideration is whether you’re conducting an online or in-person meeting. Non-verbal communication through body language is an important factor to be aware of (the customer’s and your own). Watching body language in an in-person meeting is easier than when you’re online.
Additionally, when people don’t turn on their camera during online meetings, it’s impossible to observe body language and whether they’re paying attention or not. Moreover, distractions can occur more often during online meetings. Reading email or checking the news is easier when you’re online. Meeting in person often means that you’re more focused and present in the meeting.
The following sections describe the different types of meetings that you can have with your customers.
Formal meetings
When scheduling formal meetings, you’ll need to create an agenda that includes one or several discussion points for that meeting. The agenda will let participants know if this meeting is one that they should attend. The type of meeting determines the agenda.
Types of formal meetings include:
- Project group meeting
- Project management meeting
- Workshops
- Stand-up
- Design walkthroughs
- Solution walkthroughs
- Demo a finished solution
Project group meeting
A project group meeting is with the entire project group and involves all people from the project team: users, project managers, developers, and consultants. Because several people are involved in these types of meetings, make sure that you create a clear agenda and that someone is in control of the speakers. These meetings are beneficial when you’re starting a project to make sure that everyone is familiar with the people who are working on the project. You don’t need to have everyone from the project group in every meeting.
Project management meeting
A project management meeting should be between the core project steering group, the ones who make sure that the project is done on time and on budget. Keep the list of attendees for this meeting short, and only include the people who are in top control of the meeting.
Workshops
Where you are in the project will determine who should join workshops. The first workshop is where you establish the base design of the system, so several users and decision makers should be involved. At this first workshop, everyone should inform the consultants about their needs. Additionally, the functional consultant should be able to create the design document based on these meetings.
Because you’ll use workshops to discuss the needs of the customer and how their solution should be built, you and the project team should determine how many workshops are necessary. Depending on the size of the project, it might be necessary to have more than one workshop. Occasionally, one workshop is enough.
Stand-up meeting
Stand-up meetings are quick check-ins on progress, and they can be held on a recurring basis, such as daily, weekly, or biweekly. In this type of meeting, the team will go through everything that’s been done in the system since you last met. If issues are brought up or if someone needs help with something, then the stand-up meetings are a good place to go. These meetings should be short enough that everyone can stand for the entire meeting. Additionally, it should be optional, where anyone on the project team can decide, based on the agenda, whether they need to attend that meeting or not.
Design walkthrough meeting
In a design walkthrough meeting, the consultant will meet with the customer to go through the design that they’ve created. Because it’s imperative to have multiple check-ins with the customer about the design, these meetings should occur often, and you should schedule several. One meeting could be dedicated to going through the first draft, while the others can focus on the subsequent drafts of the design.
Solution walkthrough meeting
Though you’ve done a remarkable job creating the design, and you have full control over what the customer needs and wants, you should still have solution walkthroughs with the customer throughout the build process. In this type of meeting, you’ll show the customer how your solution design will work for them. Solution walkthrough meetings will help you discover along the way if what you’re building isn’t working for the customer. It’s better to know if the system has flaws or if the customer’s needs have changed during the build rather than after you’re done building the solution.