During this very difficult time, the historic time of a pandemic across the globe, it is important to remember that life needs to go on. In the world of European projects and programmes, the European Commission is doing everything in its power to continue the funding and to make sure that currently implementing European projects will not stop their actions.
A little bit of online research is going to show you that the European Commission has already issued a plethora of different tips, rules, suggestions, and guidelines regarding the way project managers should be working on the project for the foreseeable future. At the moment, we are going through a quarantine face meaning that all trips and business meetings face-to-face will be cancelled.
It is now time for all project managers to learn how to perfectly use the world of the Internet and online meetings. Everything will continue as it is and, to proceed with your EU project implementation you will need to set up your remote meetings. That way, you will be able to perfectly control the process of the project, make arrangements and talk to your consortium, aiming at surpassing any problem that could emerge especially due to this situation.
It is, however, reasonable to assume that the online meetings are going to double or even triple in number due to the current situation. As you can understand, if you're not used to so many meetings, you might have to waste time trying to set them up. This is not something you will want to happen.
With this article, we will try to attempt to give you a few guidelines on exactly how you can set up your online meetings for your projects and save time doing so.
Find the right online meeting tool
In most cases, people will use Skype. Zoom is also a very popular online meeting tool. Your consortium is most likely going to try for a free tool which is completely reasonable. You need to make sure that, that tool will be set up from the very beginning and will stay like that throughout the entire implementation of the project.
In other words, if you decide that you're going to use Skype then you need to have a specific channel for your consortium. That way, you can simply send messages to that channel to directly talk to your collaborators and of course enter Skype calls whenever you need for you to be able to talk to everyone at once.
Maintain a log
One of the easiest ways for you to minimise the need for meetings is to make sure that you're going to maintain a log of all the previous meetings as well as a lot of everything that was discussed during the meeting. Usually, one partner will be the person responsible to keep notes regarding the conversations during the meeting. Those notes can, later on, be shared with the rest of the consortium, therefore, reducing the need to arrange more meetings to clarify or simply remember things you may have agreed upon during the previous meeting.
Keep a journal
Since you are going to adopt an online meeting strategy, it is a smart idea for you to have one big meeting with your consortium to discuss the possibility of creating a journal. The very first meeting could last for hours. You're going to need to determine a lot of different things during that meeting like for example the schedule your meetings for as long as this situation continues.
You could set up a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting depending on the needs of the project. By having the schedule that you will already know about, it will be a lot easier for you to work on your potential questions or everything you might want to present during the meeting in the days before. That way, when the time for the meeting comes, all you will need to do would be to simply enter the call and present your findings.
Have an agenda
Most likely the one thing that most consortia forget about. Without the proper agenda is easy for you to lose track of time. You could start talking about different things, one thing could lead to the other and then eventually you will find yourselves discussing a completely different matter and moving even further away from the original topic.
Eventually, you will have to come back to the original topic meaning that, you will be wasting time talking about things that might not matter at the time of the meeting. An agenda could help you and minimise the entire process by saving you a lot of time.
With the agenda, you can choose the topic or topics discussed during the meeting and you can place specific timeframes when it comes to discussing those topics. For example, you could spend half an hour at the beginning of the meeting giving general information regarding the project or any whimsical additions you might have.
After that, you could spend an hour or even an hour and a half to the most important matter of the meeting. That could be an output of the project or some budgetary issues. During that time you could also pose questions and discuss alternatives as well as different ideas you might have when it comes to implementing the project.
After that, you could devote an hour to the people who might have some sort of presentation to do or pretty much anything else that will need to be discussed. To avoid wasting time you could arrange for the court and at a specific time as well.
Go on rotation
This might be a bit complicated to understand. When more than two people are having a meeting, talking about others and trying to clarify matters can be quite complicated. However, if a rotation is chosen and met it will be a lot easier for you and your partners to be able to talk about current issues without wasting time.
A simple example could be the following. The project leader will start by addressing the problem or the matter discussed during the meeting and then, that neither will coordinate the conversation. Each partner will have a specific “number” and speak based on that number. For example, you could have the number three that means that you will be the third partner to talk about the matter in hand after the coordinator.
This might sound like a bit of an exaggeration but we can guarantee that during these types of meetings arguments could happen, everyone will want to give their opinion and it is really easy for you to start wasting time and leaving the subject over and over again. The coordinator will need to coordinate the meeting as well. Talking in a rotation will be essential to save time as well as allow everyone to give their opinion.
By following these five very simple guidelines we can guarantee that setting up online meetings with your consortium will be easier than ever. You will no longer have to waste time trying to talk over your partners to simply let your opinion be heard. You will no longer be worried about how you're going to make up your schedule for you to fit the meeting.
All meetings will be scheduled beforehand. There will be a specific agenda that you will be following. That way it will be a lot easier for you to arrange your internal meetings with your co-workers and of course, continue working without worrying about losing precious time.
This situation we are currently going through is quite difficult. We all need to understand the importance of good collaboration. Try to arrange the meetings in a way that will allow you to collaborate with your consortium, save time, give your opinion and view on important matters and allow for the project to continue moving forward.
