Ever went to a meeting with the clients/vendors with no idea what to ask, discuss, or report?
Ever left a meeting without being sure of what was achieved?
Or worse, not invited to the meeting itself, and not informed before and after the meeting at all on what was discussed?
These meeting are usually missing two important activities. The pre-meeting activity, and post-meeting activity.
Before meeting up with the clients/vendors, or any other external parties, it is always good and crucial to meet up internally first. Establish a set of understanding of where everyone's progress/standing is within the team, so that when meeting the external parties, a unified front can be shown.
In additional, the project manager (from this side of the team), could collect all the questions that needed to be asked to the external party before hand. List of issues to bring up, and any progress since the last meeting could be consolidated as well. Having this list prepared before hand is helpful. Popping the questions on 'anyone has anything to say' constantly in the meeting, or doing a round-the-table talking does not show that the project manager is in control. Probably would reduce the external parties' confidence in the team too.
Do some 'paper-play' as well before the meeting, especially on the issues to bring up. Think about how to response to the enquires, and offer solutions even before they ask for. This adds to the image of being professional. Definitely will justify the money spent on the team and project.
After the meeting, hold another internal meeting again. Go through once again what was discussed. Broadcast the decisions made and discussions out to the team if they were not in the meeting with the external parties. Their work require them to be aware of what is currently happening.
Also, always come away from the meeting with an action list. It is pretty impossible to not take any actions after any meeting. The team should own at least some actions, while the external parties would own others. Come back and start distributing the actions out too. Revisit the list from time to time, and report the status of this actions on the next meeting with the external parties.
Any meeting with the external parties without doing the pre and post activities would, in my opinion, not be effective, and one would end up with a confused, demoralized, and disgruntled project team.
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