Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.

—Bob Proctor

HABIT THREE

Finish every meeting with an Action Items List

MEETINGS AS LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Every project requires periodic meetings where the core team can get together to discuss the project's goals, progress against assigned responsibilities, and make decisions. A project leader takes the time to determine what frequency of meetings makes the most sense for the project. Too few meetings can negatively impact team communication; too many can overwhelm the project team and cause them to be resentful. Both instances can become a barrier against making progress.

On a hospital construction project, the strategy with respect to meetings was unique. The project leader had a breakfast meeting with his core team at 6:30 a.m. each morning not lasting more than half an hour. There were absolutely no project meetings during the day except with the customer. At the end of the day, there was a half-hour project progress meeting at 5:00 p.m. The project leader utilized each meeting as a leadership opportunity. In the morning meeting, anyone could raise any issue for resolution. In the evening meeting, only progress was discussed. The agenda, frequency, and duration was clearly understood by everyone throughout the two-year duration of the project.

The worst mistake a project leader can make is to keep a meeting for the sake of having meetings. If a particular meeting will not bring value to your project team, cancel it. Use well-defined agendas to control project meetings and keep them productive. Developing an agenda will also force you to think about the discussion's goals and whether or not a meeting is the best medium to achieve those goals. For example, an email to the project team may be a better alternative to share new information that doesn't require any additional action.

Project leaders will turn every project meeting into a leadership opportunity by ensuring that an action items list (AIL) is competently developed. Having a detailed agenda can help the project leader think through potential action items that may come out of the meeting. It is important to clarify desired outcomes and decisions expected from the meetings. Many times project meetings or product reviews take place without getting the desired results from the participants. Throughout the meeting, a designated scribe should record high-level discussion points and to-dos for each agenda item. The project leader should reserve the last five minutes of each meeting to review these notes as a group and assign action items. Distribute the AIL immediately after the meeting.

I worked on a telecom project where the project manager had long ad-hoc meetings four to five times a day with no specific agenda and no AIL. This left no time for getting the real work done and resulted in a lot of wasted time. In each subsequent meeting, no one would take responsibility of what was agreed upon in the previous meeting. This had a significant adverse impact on the schedule of deliverables. More than 70% of the daily business hours were spent on non-productive meetings that caused a lot of people to unnecessarily work overtime.

AIL → Accountability

The business strategy behind promoting this habit is to protect the schedule by holding team members accountable for what they committed to perform and when they committed to deliver. The first habit helps attain a sense of responsibility, the second habit helps attain a sense of authority, and the third habit helps attain a sense of accountability. So we move from responsibility to authority to accountability. A project leader empowers his or her team with these three essential things to drive the best possible project outcome in terms of both schedule and cost. The alternative is micromanaging. Professionals do not like to be micromanaged and often dodge the performance management system through inaccurate reporting.

Developing an AIL ensures that nothing gets overlooked and enables the project leader to gain implicit agreement from each team member to own their respective action items. By forging a notion of accountability, the project team is motivated to proactively work toward completing their action items.

A well-written action item contains enough information to spur the team into action rather than just serving as an anchor for them to then remember what needs to be done. The following list describes good rules of thumb in capturing each action item:

• Provide context and enough detail so that a team member who was not in attendance can easily understand the action item

• Assign ownership (Habit 1) by name or, as a minimum, by discipline or department

• Include a due date that has been agreed upon by the person or department

• Assign priority so that high-priority items get addressed first

• Assign impact on project plan (see Habit 5)

On another project, the project leader had an informal AIL, but did not attach much significance to due dates. People kept slipping on promised dates. The project became unmanageable, as no one knew when exactly a particular document would be done and available for further action. Assigning a specific name and due date to an action item is especially critical for global projects where team members are not colocated.

There is a popular parable of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody that demonstrates what happens when assumptions are made, instructions are not well-communicated, and no specific name or due date is assigned to a task:

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

The AIL should be an ongoing, living document until all items have been closed at the end of the project. Each subsequent project meeting should begin with the project leader reviewing the list to determine which items have been completed, capture progress against the ones that are still outstanding, and address any risks/issues.

Additionally, starting meetings on time is a critical subhabit. In many cultures, this is not respected or taken seriously. Participants routinely barge into the meeting room 10 to 15 minutes late. A project leader ensures that the “late” culture is not tolerated by setting a precedent and coming to meetings on time.

On one telecom project, the project leader started locking the conference room doors five minutes after the meeting start time. This sent a strong signal and participants started coming to his meetings on time. A project leader sets the commercial tone of how he or she is going to run the project. Similarly, a project leader also sets the commercial tone with the customer about how he or she is going to execute the project.