1. COMP 208/214/215/216 Lecture 2
Teams and Meetings

2. Lifecycle of a Typical Team
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing

3. Forming Liaise with colleagues to form your team
Return the filled registration form to me
Incomplete teams will be completed by me. Missing people will be assigned to a team at random.

4. 4
Talk to Strangers!
Bigger is not Better

5. Forming The team is formed
Members introduce each other, and learn about each other’s skills and personalities
They discuss the team mission, and make a preliminary assessment of duties and allocation of tasks.
MBTI, a useful tool to set out tasks and responsibilities (see on VITAL).

6. Storming
The team gets down to real work under pressure, and meets its first crisis
There are differences of opinion about what to do, or about how or when to do it, or the quality of what is done
Sometimes the differences are resolved peacefully, sometimes not
Always best to discuss any differences.

7. Norming
Resolution of differences requires agreement as to team norms and practices
Norms are rules or standard procedures for how a team does things
They will possibly differ from one team to the next.

8. Performing
Once team members are agreed on their goals and how they will work together, they can get down to doing the work
Ideally, each team should reach this stage as soon as possible.

9. Meetings Meetings are important:
They ensure that everyone knows what is going on
They provide opportunity for discussion
They foster commitment as a group
Group meetings are an integral part of this course: groups are required to meet weekly.

10. There are different kinds of meetings:
Meetings vary according to their
size
formality
purpose
Most of what follows applies to all types of meetings: where specific I shall deal with small meetings intended to review progress on a project.

11. Meeting roles Chair: Secretary: Participants:
responsible for calling the meeting, setting the agenda, controlling the meeting.
Secretary:
responsible for recording the business of the meeting, circulating the meeting notes.
Participants:
responsible for relevant agenda items; making constructive contributions.
In small meetings, the secretary and chair are the same person, and they act as participants as well.
You may
want to
try
different
roles at
meetings

12. Purpose
A meeting should have a clear purpose at the outset, and should not be distracted from that purpose.
Your meetings are mainly to:
Report progress so that everyone knows what is happening
Decide what needs to be done, and who is going to do it
Agree on a set of actions for the forthcoming week.

13. Before the meeting The chair: The participants Prepares an agenda
Circulates the agenda to the participants.
The participants
Before the agenda is produced, ask the chair to include items they want to discuss
Read the agenda when it arrives
Prepare for any items they need to report on
Think about other items they can contribute to
Tell the chair if they cannot attend for any reason.

14. The Agenda - I Heading Standard items 1. Apologies
Meeting:
1. Apologies
2. Minutes
3. Matters Arising
The Agenda - I
Heading
Date, time and place of meeting
It is good to meet at a regular time and place each week.
Purpose of Meeting
Standard items
Apologies for absence
Minutes of last meeting
Matters arising
Reports on progress on actions agreed at last meeting.

15. The Agenda - II New Items: Typical for your meetings:
4. Review of
plan
5. Tasks for
coming week
6. Allocation
of Tasks
The Agenda - II
New Items:
Typical for your meetings:
Review of plan in the light of reports
Identification of tasks
Allocation of responsibility for tasks
Other issues people want to raise
General progress
Difficulties
Requests for support and advice.

16. The Agenda - III Closing Items Any Other Business
8. Next Meeting
The Agenda - III
Closing Items
Any Other Business
Last minute additions, since agenda was produced
Date and Time of Next Meeting
Fix a date and time which makes it possible for everyone to attend
Also agree who will chair the next meeting and who will be secretary.

17. During the Meeting (Chair)
The Chair should follow the agenda in order.
Ask someone to start the item (e.g. report their progress)
Invite comments
Ensure the discussion remains focussed, and that everyone stays calm
Force a decision if necessary
Summarise what has been agreed
Move onto the next item.

18. During the Meeting -Secretary
For each agenda item, the secretary should:
Note what was reported
Note what was agreed
Note any actions that were identified, and who will carry them out.
Do not record too much detail.
We don’t need a blow-by-blow account of the discussion, just a record of the conclusions.

19. During the Meeting - All
Be constructive
Stick to the point
Be considerate - don’t try to score points
Be reasonable
Make a note of the agreed actions for which you are responsible

20. After the Meeting The secretary writes the meeting note
The secretary circulates the meeting note to all invited to the meeting (and to the project monitor)
Everyone reads the meeting note
Everyone tries to carry out the actions they were assigned.

21. Meeting Note - I
The meeting note is primarily to record actions that have been agreed.
It is not a verbatim record of the discussion.
It should be kept succinct:
It should be as short as possible, while conveying the required information.

22. Meeting Note - II Heading Present Apologies
Gives the date, time and place of the meeting
Present
Records who was present at the meeting
Apologies
Anyone invited who could attend and said so.

23. Meeting Note - III For each agenda item:
A simple factual
record is what
is needed
For each agenda item:
Reported: What was reported about the item, and who reported it
Agreed: What if anything the meeting agreed about the item
Action: What was agreed should be done, and who agreed to do it
Date, time and place of next meeting.

24. Meeting Notes
Each team will be provided with a little file space on VITAL (more later)
You need to upload notes of each team meeting
Within 3 working days of each meeting
It is OK to type the notes directly into a file.
Your project monitor will check on your progress via your team tools

25. Summary Prepare for the meeting.
Know what you need or want to say when you arrive
Stick to the business of the meeting
Make sure everyone knows what was agreed and what they are meant to do after the meeting.
Carry out the actions given to you.
Upload meeting notes each week.