Managing
The Commercial Communications Process (Week 10)
As with
any business, regular meetings must be held and managed effectively in order to
product successful results. In both past and present group assignments, regular
team discussions are one of the most crucial aspects of conducting research, a
campaign, brainstorms etc.
Although
holding meetings may sound simple, Vic’s lecture today in project management
reinforced the extensive side to implementing this key business tool.
All meetings must meet four specific characteristics;
1) Time Lined
–
A definitive start and end – linked to
implementation of strategic goals
2) Defined Deliverables
–
Distillation of the question /problem
into objectives and outcomes
–
Linked to the time line
3) Budgets
–
Commercially based projects need to build a budget based upon above, plus
cost elements of Personnel Time, Appropriate Materials, Travel/Software and Other
Resources
If
they do not meet these aspects and do not hold them regularly enough, set
projects can fail. This may be due to;
·
Absent or Inadequate Plan
·
Poor Management of Expectations
·
Unmanaged Change
·
Inadequate Communications
·
Poor Monitoring or Control
·
Constraints/Poor Management of Budget
However,
if meetings are held effectively, organisations can receive high rewards. An
outline of assessing the advantages and disadvantages is shown below.
Agendas
Conducting
team meetings may not always run smoothly and it is important to minimise this
risk as much as possible. One way of doing this is by creating initial agendas.
This then allows the meeting to run much smoother and ensure no time is wasted
or members become unproductive. Agendas are a vital and often underrated
management tool but do have its advantages. It ensures all participants are
adequately prepared for the meeting and each clear and specific item on the
list achieves the desired outcome. A few examples of agendas are outlined
below.
Contact Reports
Contact
Reports include a variety of information such as the issue number, details of participants,
the venue in which the meeting was staged, a record of agreed actions (who? what?
when? how?) and a record of agreed points noted.
Documents
can then be uploaded onto the company’s IT system for any staff member’s future
reference. A few software systems available to do this include Microsoft
Project Manager and Google Docs Project Management. Mostly though, contact
reports are stored via Excel Spreadsheets and Email. All of these methods allow
an effective communication hub which all members of the business can log into
in order to;
·
View company progress and identify any
problems
·
Measure input and assess against a set
timeline
·
Communicate at individual and team level
etc.
“How projects are run and the way people
work on them will relate to the culture within the organisation and how this
manifests itself with the project team”
An
overall plan regarding Meeting Preparation is presented in the table below.
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