The word meeting provokes strong emotions for many professionals. For any project, meetings are an essential part, and for the success of the project, it is critical how well they are managed.  A project development meeting is the best way to get real work done effectively and efficiently. Most of the companies follow this management practice when they want to plan and track project status. Project development meetings also play a significant role in developing teamwork.

Productive project development meetings increase team morale, provide timely information, uncover potential risks, and encourage relevant information sharing.

Let’s take a look at the 6 most important project development meetings:

1)The project kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting in business means the time when work starts. Kick-off is the first meeting with the project manager and the client of the project to discuss a strategy or plan before launching a project. The discussion involves legalities related to the project. This meeting can help to execute the project with minimum obstruction, and one can finish the project efficiently with fewer or no obstacles.

Results of the Kick-off meeting: 

• Clients have a clear idea of how long the project will take to complete.
• The management and development teams are having an initial list of tasks to begin working on.

2)The project planning meeting

The project planning meeting is a critical phase during project development. During the kick-off meeting, the whole project is divided into approximate stages. In the planning meeting, these stages are broken down into more specific iterations. The management and development team members set up a planning meeting to establish appropriate iterations.

Results of the planning meeting:

• Developers can work with a good idea of what needs to be implemented.
• Clients are with a clear picture of what they can expect to see and by when.

3)The technical meeting

The technical meeting is the most crucial phase during the development process. Within the development team, technical meetings are usually internal meetings. The meeting is conducted between the team leader and the developers to discuss how a complex task should be technically implemented. Developers share their views on how to built features and decide which solution is best to implement most efficiently.

Results of the technical meeting:

• This meeting provides the development team a clear direction for moving forward on a project.
• The development team also gets a clear idea of implementing intricate features as well as share a software architecture plan.

4)The daily meeting

The daily meeting is conducted to get updates on progress and also to align team goals. Generally, the daily meeting is for a short time (not longer than 10 to 15 minutes), and it’s done to ensure that projects are running smoothly. After all, this meeting allows teams to evaluate the present status and progress of a project while also allowing them to identify or predict problems within a short period.

Results of the daily meeting:

• Team leads and team members have a perfect idea of the status of the project, as well as any potential issues that may arise.
• Highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improves the development team’s level of knowledge.

5)The project demo meeting

The project demo meeting is one of the most important meetings because, at this meeting, the progress achieved is demonstrated to the customer. In this meeting, customer participation is crucial for the development process. Here, the most interested party is the customer, and the team needs his assessment. Team members need to realize that they are moving in the right direction.

Results of the demo meeting:

• The realisation of the original ideas can be seen clearly to the concerned parties.
• For a customer, it’s a great opportunity to understand whether or not to make any changes in the subsequent functionality.

6)The project retrospective meeting

Usually at the end when the project is completed, retrospective meetings are held. This meeting is usually for the internal team members who worked on a project. The team members can find out and discuss the good and bad aspects of the project, looking for the best practices to adopt and potential drawbacks to address.

The main purpose of the retrospective meeting is to gather information and feedback from the team which helps in improving the future development processes.

Results of the retrospective meeting:

• The retrospective meeting improves work culture.
• The end of a retrospective lets the team start the next sprint with a clean slate.

• It’s essential to be prepared and know your objective for the meeting because the better you prepare yourself, the better will be the result.

• Create an agenda and limit it to the main points as this will allow enough time to spend on important topics and will avoid wasting time.

• Include the right people in the meeting. Include the key decision-makers as well as team members that have important insight on the topics that will be discussed. This will increase efficiency.

• Effective communication is vital for an effective meeting. Communication is the most important predictor of team success. Everyone needs to understand the main topics and the decisions made in the meeting.

• Always keep focus during the meeting because many times, meetings get off track or off subject. This can cause problems in achieving objectives and goals.

• Create a schedule to review goals status. Before closing the meeting quickly summarise all the important points that have been outlined and send an email to the team covering all the main aspects.

• Keep the meeting positive and always encourage feedback. If everyone is positive and motivated during the meeting, this will create enthusiasm to complete the project.

• After the meeting, ask honest feedback from the team. Did the meeting fulfill the objective? Was there something unclear? Ask for their suggestions for improving future meetings.

Conclusion:

I hope the above-mentioned points will help you in running successful project development meetings. For making meetings more effective, there are always lots of opportunities, and every team member can contribute with ideas. When project development meetings are effective and efficient, the results are tremendous!