1 Story About a Steering Meeting Self-Invite on a Project
The purpose of this blog is to relate a story to provide some insights that might help you in creating and managing your steering committee and stakeholder participation.
The Steering Committee is covered under the project pieces of Roles, Organization, Stakeholders, and Communications which are all under the People segment within the LEAD domain in the MPM model.
The Steering Committee is covered under the project pieces of Roles, Organization, Stakeholders, and Communications which are all under the People segment within the LEAD domain in the MPM model
A Self-Invited Member
In a project I was leading, we had the steering meeting set up, were progressing with our regularly scheduled meetings and the project was moving along as expected.
However, one of the stakeholders was a manager whose direct report was a technical specialist and, shall we say, exhibited a great amount of influence over how this particular manager made decisions. Sometimes it was hard to tell who reported to whom.
This manager, without asking myself or the sponsor, invited this technical specialist to the meeting. They just showed up together and the manager announced that this specialist was going to be attending the meetings from that point on because their expertise would help with decision-making in the steering meeting.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out who told whom it was a great idea they attend the steering meeting.
Steering meetings need to look at the big picture
Well, it was a failure from the first meeting.
Steering meetings need to cover material and make decisions at a high-level. If it is too low-level you miss the big picture and risk not discussing or reviewing items that need attention, and can jeopardize your project’s success.
Make sure the steering meeting is focused on the big picture
If the steering meeting goes down too many rabbit-holes and gets lost in minutiae, not relevant to executive level decision making, the committee meeting purpose is lost, and the meeting is ineffective.
When the problem became apparent, Plan A was to have this person removed, but unfortunately, no executive felt comfortable approaching that individual to terminate their participation.
This was a concern to myself as the project manager since my project depended on the input and decision making of the steering committee, so a plan B was necessary.
Re-position or re-brand the steering meeting if necessary
I created a second meeting which I called an executive decision discussion and invited a core group which was the original core steering team, and I initially didn’t include the manager who had brought on the specialist.
Ensure the integrity of your steering meeting
Eventually I wound down the original steering meeting and kept going with the executive decision discussion. The manager who had made the fateful invitation was also invited back but it was on the premise that the meeting was for executive only.
Plan B worked and I had my steering meeting back intact, with a slightly different name, but for the purpose and intent the project needed.
Sometimes ensuring the integrity of your steering committee requires vigilance and political stickhandling.
Summary
The purpose of the steering meeting is to see the big picture and make high-level decisions that are critical to the success of your project.
The incorrect participants could derail this purpose and render the steering meeting ineffective, thereby endangering your project in the long run.
As the manager managing your project, you need to ensure the attendees of your steering meeting, and the discussions and focus of the meeting, are at the appropriate level.
Sometimes ensuring the integrity of the steering meeting requires vigilance and a little bit of political stickhandling.
Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge
- Review past records and decision making of your steering meeting and ensure in your own mind that the focus on discussion was appropriate. You need big-picture thinking. Your project needs it.
- If you need more or less attendees, make those decisions as soon as possible and enlist the help of your sponsor.
- If necessary, re-position the steering meeting to ensure it is providing the feedback and insights that your project requires for success.
- Prompt engineering guidance for AI GPTs such as chatGPT: “I’m a business leader launching a project whose purpose is Y, and delivering X. What are some approaches I could take to handle a difficult situation where a stakeholder has invited a lower level technical person to the steering meetings and it has derailed the value of that meeting because the discussions are dragged into a technical realm?”
Learn More to Do More
Business evolves through change initiatives otherwise known as projects. The key to managing these change initiatives so you have more time, and less stress is to use simple strategies and tools.
Check out the Learning Hub’s other Articles with Actionable Steps, organized with a busy leader in mind, by topic or main idea, and with some AI GPT (e.g. ChatGPT) prompt engineering suggestions under the Action steps: https://simplepmstrategies.com/learning-hub-index
LEAD - Steering Self Invite
© Simple PM Strategies 2024