Introduction
Legend has it that a local sheriff called on the Texas Rangers for assistance in quelling a riot in his town. The message to the sheriff said that help would arrive at noon on the train. He was waiting on the platform as the train stopped, and off stepped a lone Ranger. The sheriff was puzzled; he had expected to see a whole company of Rangers. Approaching the Ranger he said questioningly, “Where are the other Rangers?” The response was, “How many riots are there?” “One,” said the sheriff. “Well,” replied the Ranger, “One riot, one Ranger.”
Kick-Off, Update, Implementation, Closing, Lessons Learned; even the smallest of projects requires meetings, and meetings require agendas, and notes, and minutes, and next meeting agendas.… Isn't there an easier way to manage this essential item of projects! Yes, the Texas Ranger Agenda.
The Old Meeting and Its Agenda
Do your meetings consist of “show and tell”? Have you heard report after report going around the room such as, “After multitudinous meetings with upper management and every contact required for this item, all of which went long into the day, additional topics were discussed and continuing meetings are viewed as necessary for the successful completion of the Action Item.” Interpretation: After forgetting to do anything for a week, I left a question for someone in another group just before leaving for home, and they have not called back.
Even on the best of teams the discussion tends to turn to what project task or subtask was completed; complete with exposition on how it was completed, its difficulty, and its ultimate completion, most generally at great cost to the owner or with a self-congratulatory “pat on the back” on their ingenious solution. Task completion is viewed by us as a status report best done through updates to the project plan according to the communication plan. Analyzing the project plan and determination of praise is not a group activity of a regularly scheduled meeting.
Following the “show and tell” is the Action Item brainstorm. The meeting is opened to the floor to suggest Action Items, mostly a suggestion from one member about how another member or group could better do their job, usually with no necessary participation by the initiator. This is the classic “throw the monkey from my back to yours.” After the redistribution of “monkeys,” some Action Items are accepted before the meeting time has expired or a quorum is not left.
After the meeting the PM is left to make sense of what has transpired, to write a concise and complete minutes and Action Item list/update, distribute the minutes for comment, consolidate any changes, redistribute final minutes, and produce the agenda for the next meeting based on the final minutes.
The Lone Ranger Meeting and Its Agenda
Our premise is that project meetings are to establish, assign, monitor, and close Action Items. To that end it is imperative that continuous historical data be available. The “Lone Ranger Agenda” provides for this type of historical data by maintaining a single source of Action Item data and a cross-reference ability.
Establish, Assign, Monitor, and Close Action Items
Action Items follow a similar sequence of events and basic responsibilities as that for projects.
The “Establish” phase starts with the presentation of the initial Action Item premise and objectives. An evaluation by the team of the scope and specific objectives follows. Opening the Establish phase to the input and scrutiny of the team ensures that the scope will be appropriate to the project. The team will be able to determine whether there is a missing component that might require an additional Action Item in the future. Too often the scope of an Action Item is established from a single viewpoint or area of the project. This myopic view will not include or address a similar situation in another area whose inclusion will provide an economy-of-scale multiplier.
The “Assign” phase, always done within the meeting, provides a greater legitimacy and ensures that all team members are aware of each Action Item and its owner. Knowledge of the Action Item will help eliminate duplication of action and provide an established point of contact for team members to pass pertinent information.
The “Monitor” phase provides the major impetus for all meetings. As each relevant active Action Item is reviewed, its objectives can be adjusted as necessary to ensure an appropriate and successful conclusion. Not all Action Items are monitored at each meeting. Using priority and completion dates, for example, the PM may decide that only “Action Items closing in the next two reporting periods, or with the highest priority level” will be discussed. This filtering is made possible by techniques of the Lone Ranger Agenda.
Closing an Action Item is a team action. Only if the team's evaluation of the Action Item concludes that all the objectives have been achieved will the item be closed. Once again, there is the input and scrutiny of the team that the Action Item has met all objectives.
A corollary to the “meeting is Action Items” is that all meeting discussions will be about Action Items. How is that possible?
Action Items are sometimes masked as complaints, or accomplishments. Any statement that begins with “ If only there wasn't…”, or “If only there was…”, or “Only by doing [new idea or process] was I successful” is an Action Item. To unmask the underlying Action Items, the PM should immediately begin asking probing questions. What is the specific problem or process change that is being discussed? What Action Item will specifically address the problem? Is this problem part of an existing Action Item? What other associated problem(s) should be addressed by this Action Item?
Major problems of meeting management that will be addressed in this paper are: repetition of data, attendance reporting, and continuity of historical data.
Repetition of Data
Lay out all of the agendas, notes, and minutes from a project in one place for viewing and you become immediately aware of the repetition of data. This is a direct result and necessity of the need for the information to be organized for easier access. Knowing the format of the agenda and minutes makes it easier to find those pieces of information that you need to synthesize to evaluate and monitor the project. But it is still repetitious, and requires that you reevaluate it time, after time, after time.… The “Lone Ranger Agenda” removes this repetition by only using the data once, there is only one agenda for the project. Data is input only once, kept in only one place, and is always available.
Major violators of this repetition of data are meeting logistics, reminders on next meeting schedules, and action item topics. Meeting logistics are usually the same, particularly for regular project meetings… for example, the same conference room, the same conference call phone number, the same time slot, the same agenda, the same list of attendees….All this information is repetitive data in the preparation of the meeting agenda.
Attendance Reporting
Tracking and analyzing attendance requires organizing and collecting attendance statistics from past meetings. The project manager must determine which team members have not been attending regularly. Participation and availability of project team members as part of the meeting requirements are essential. The project manager must be aware at each meeting who is responsible for each area of the project. Quorums are necessary for Action Items to be correctly designed and assigned. Meeting support requires the establishment and filling of stated positions, such as recorder, timekeeper, and host. The distribution of these requires historical data, not just of the last meeting, but also of the project series of meetings.
Continuity of Historical Data
A third area in the preparation of meeting minutes where problems are encountered is the process of searching for topics or reviewing documentation. This is particularly useful in updating a new team member or especially when a new project manager is assigned to replace an outgoing project manager. The review could be focused on a specific topic or subject matter area of the project. Instead of sifting through numerous meeting minutes for the continuous reporting of a particular activity, action, or decision related to a certain category or component of the project, this function could be focused on just the desired search area.
The Lone Ranger Agenda advocates a common location of information, available to all project members, which is flexible enough to provide queries on Action Items. For our paper the chosen device was MS Outlook using a public folder and categories. As the corporate choice for email this provided a widely available, well-supported software application with little additional training requirement for use by team members. The familiar and daily use by the team members of Outlook also provided a confidence and strong basis for any basic user to increase their skill level to the intermediate level.
A public folder is established for a project. Subfolders are set for the major needs of the Agenda. These include such standards as: Agenda, Attendance, Action Items, Project Plan, and Special Files.
An “Agenda” subfolder is opened to hold the standard form for meeting announcement. Until the team is accustomed to going to the public folder on a regular basis, this meeting announcement can be distributed by the PM to ensure attendance. Its being standard, and with the accumulation of data in other folders (e.g., attendance, status of AI's, etc.) only date changes are required for this action.
The “Attendance” subfolder holds the spreadsheet of attendance of ALL meetings. We suggest that attendance be monitored by group representation, not by person. Each required group should be represented by the same person at each meeting for continuity and to eliminate the need for reeducation or “bringing up to speed” at each meeting. Sporadic or multiple representation is quickly identified and data is available for discussion as necessary by this technique. As new resources are identified and old resources are released, their attendance start and end dates are available—helpful information for historical data and end-of-project evaluation.
The “Action Item” subfolder is the mainstay of the Lone Ranger Agenda. Any Action Item generated throughout the life of the project is housed here. Each is prioritized, categorized, provided a responsible owner, and an appropriate completion date. Using these fields, the Action Items can be filtered in multiple ways to monitor progress and completion, provide answers to project queries, or to generate new Action Items.
The “Project Plan” subfolder is the repository of the project plan. This “same sheet of music” is available to all team members, is updated and modified by all as prescribed by the communications plan. The constant and conscientious maintenance of this document eliminates the “show and tell” time of meetings. Analysis and evaluation of the project using this tool are not part of this paper, but are recognized as a possible source of Action Items.
“Special Files” includes such items as Job Aids and “Tools and Techniques.” As the project proceeds and tasks are completed, knowledge is gained and applied as continuous improvement to shorten the time of tasks or increase quality. Many times this knowledge or experience will not be sufficient to change a process, but is valuable to the team on a task- or step-level. This folder provides “chat rooms” for new ideas and ways to complete steps or tasks. Team members should be encouraged, and provided time within their tasks, to submit their ideas and place them in all of the appropriate “chat rooms” for use by other members. From here Action Items are generated as these ideas and ways coalesce from individual actions into process changes or new processes.
As a specific set of steps to complete a certain task, Job Aids are usually applied when tasks are performed only occasionally. Sometimes they are called “cheat sheets” or checklists, but they are only cheating the time to retrain or review training material to find the steps, commands, sequence,…required to do the task. Checklists are also valuable as reference and historical data when applied to repetitive tasks. “Tools and Techniques” differ from Job Aids in that they tend to provide direction or information on a specific step of a task or reference a source to shorten a task. Grouping this information about a series of steps may produce a Job Aid.
All projects require periodic reports as part of their communications plan. The “Reports” file holds all of these documents, segregated by topic or title as best fits the needs of the users.
Utilizing an MS Outlook Public Folder for Action Items
Based on the philosophy that action items are the cornerstone of the project meetings, they are the central focus of the Outlook public folder. All action items are stored in an Action Items folder created to contain Outlook task items.
Various views may be defined for the Action Items. The views and data contents are user-definable depending on the project team's requirements. For our example Action Items current view, the following columns are displayed (Exhibit 1):
1. Priority—The ”!” column whose levels are High, Medium, Low
2. Action Item number—Provides a unique identifier for reference purposes
3. Completed check box—Used to quickly check off completed Action Items
4. Subject—Short description of Action Item; states what is to be done
5. Start Date—Date Action Item is assigned
6. Due Date—Date when Action Item is targeted for completion
7. Owner—Team member with primary responsibility for completing the Action Item
8. Date Completed—Date of actual completion of Action Item
9. Categories—One or more classification groups for Action Item
Depending on the view that is used, completed action items may be displayed along with uncompleted action items, or removed from the view so that only uncompleted action items are displayed. Using the grouping function or filters, various views of the Action Items can be displayed.
Exhibit 1. Action Items View
Exhibit 2. Action Items View With Preview Pane
For a quick view of the Notes field of an action item, the Preview Pane function is turned on. This is activated under View/Preview Pane (see Exhibit 2).
Each action item may be viewed in full detail by double-clicking on the item, or right-clicking on the item, and selecting Open.
To view the action items by owner, the grouping function (Exhibit 3) for the current view is used. This may be used by a team member to display only the tasks that the member owns for review or updating purposes. To group, go to View/Current View/Customer Current View/Group by. If using user-defined fields, use the drop-down box of “Select Available Fields from:” at the bottom of the screen.
Exhibit 3. Grouping Function Window
Exhibit 4. Category Listing
Instead of filing copies of an action item under multiple folders for classification and grouping, categories are used. A dropdown listing of the categories (see Exhibit 4) makes it easy and consistent in their selection. Since an action item may be classified under many categories, this is much more flexible than separate folders. Updating an action item is done only once even though it is classified under more than one category. Using the folder approach, the action item would have to be updated in all of the folders in which copies were placed.
Exhibit 5. Advanced Find Function
Exhibit 6. Advanced Find—Search for “Install”
The Advanced Find function of Outlook provides a superior method of searching for specific fields in the Subject, Notes, or other fields of the Action Items folder. Date searches are also available. Exhibit 5 is an example of a search for all action items where Jim is listed in the Owner field.
A search for all action items that contain the word “Install” (Exhibit 6) in the Subject or Notes fields results in the following screen.
Applying the Outlook task items folder approach for Action Items is very flexible and provides numerous practical methods of dicing and slicing the project Action Items. By storing these action items in a public folder, the action items are available to all team members to use the power of this technique.
The use of MS Outlook in the preparation and analysis of action items enhances the organization of data and improves the probability of moving the project forward to a successful completion.
Conclusion
The “Texas Ranger Agenda” provides a single focus point for all of the traditional meeting needs, while eliminating the production of agendas, notes, and minutes along with their associated duplication and hassle. Like the Ranger, the rule becomes, “ONE project, ONE agenda.”