In our webinar, How to Run Effective Meetings with EON, we tackled the different methods that EON users can utilize to improve both the planning and management processes related to three types of meetings: the 1:1 meeting, the team meeting, and the leadership review.
After our presentation, we held a Q&A session, offering the people who attended the webinar the opportunity to ask the questions that occurred to them during the broadcast. Here are the questions that attendees posed and the in-depth answers provided.
Questions and Answers From Our Webinar
Q: Can all team members listed in a Project see the Project summary from their [My] Projects dashboard [on the My Commitments Page] or only the Leader’s [Project Owner] dashboard?
A: The My Commitments page in EON will show all work associated with the specific account from which you are logged in. If a user’s name is added to a Project as a Sponsor, Owner/Lead, or Teammate, the Project will appear on their My Commitments page.
When viewing Projects from the Project List, it is possible to filter and sort the displayed information by using the search function, columns button, and adjusting the organization level. For example, it is possible to search a particular employee’s name to view all projects in which they are assigned as either a sponsor or owner/lead.
Q: I use many of the Microsoft Office tools for effective meetings, such as Word for agendas and minutes, or Excel for Action tracking. Does the EON platform effectively replace these tools or do you suggest we use both?
A: In short, we suggest you use EON for Action tracking and use the Attachments Tab within Strategies, Projects, KPI’s and Heatmaps to attach Word files or a URL to a cloud based shared drive.
The longer answer is that we encourage our clients to use what works for them while learning how to best utilize the EON platform. Word documents (or other similar office tools) are incredibly useful for checklist templates, meeting agendas, and content writing - these items can be linked to attached throughout EON. Where EON can go above Word, is the standardization around Project Charter pages and the visibility into the information.
When setting EON as the standard expectation for project details, for example, you have the ability to immediately establish consistency around the fields, naming conventions, etc. all the while making all project work visible and accessible to the right people. Meeting minutes no longer have to be passed around via email, instead, quick updates to the project can be done during the meeting, action items assigned, etc. so there is less time spent follow up work and more time spent on the project work.
Tracking action plans in EON vs. Excel can produce similar results: visibility, accessibility, and accountability. In excel, you’ll generally have a massive list with many projects and many actions that support those projects - or you’ll have a large number of Excel sheets dedicated to a project with the individual action plan. This is incredibly limiting in recognizing the dynamic nature of project work, the inter-mingled levels of responsibility, and the alignment of improvement work. Plus, when was the last time your excel sheet sent you/your direct report a notification when you had an overdue action item?
Q: What’s an example of standard work that we should do in between meetings?
A: As a leader: Meet with your teams to define which standard fields are expected to be used in EON. Don’t wait for the meeting to look in EON. Make an EON review part of your standard daily work - lean on EON to gain insights throughout the week so you are always in the know on any and all project progress. During meetings, you will dive straight into EON, focusing on items you have further questions on or need to provide specific support, because you already have the update on “how’s it going?”
As a practitioner: EON becomes the central place where all of your project work lives. So, in between meetings, use the various fields to provide insights to anyone who may access the work for additional information.
Lastly, we encourage our clients to schedule time with us to help you identify more specific roadblocks.
Q: How can I see actions associated with a KPI in the Visualize view?
A: The best view to see KPI action items is to use the KPI Dashboard or the Scorecard Action Item list view. From here, you can filter using the search, columns and org structure to view only the relevant information - such as actions associated with KPI’s.
Q: Based on what you have seen and heard, what is the desired frequency for the review meetings?
A: The frequency of meetings will vary depending on some variables, such as the size of the organization, how embedded the OpEx team is within the organization, the size of the OpEx team, and how quickly/slowly turn around occurs within the organization, however we can generalize. Generally we suggest the following frequency for the three types of meetings:
- 1:1: weekly
- Team: bi-weekly
- Leadership Review: monthly to quarterly
Q: Can you summarize the “people” piece again?
A: We reviewed ‘Known Best Practices for Effective Meetings’ - nobody is re-inventing the wheel here - you can google that list with agenda examples, 3P’s, etc. Where the true bottleneck is what we saw confirmed in the webinar poll responses - lack of preparedness and participation, one person overtaking the meeting, others checked out of the meeting, no plan for or a place to track progress - all of these are a result of not defining or reinforcing the purpose of a meeting and then consistently holding to that.
Where EON shines in that regard is that it gives you a central repository for all of that work so that that part is never the bottleneck. As our client, you also have access to Michelle and I to work with you to help you identify your true meeting bottlenecks. We’d love to talk to you more about the coaching side of helping each and every employee commit to the success of recurring meetings because that’s the biggest variable - that’s what we mean by “people are the key”.
Did you miss the initial broadcast? Want to share it with coworkers? Or perhaps you'd like to listen to it again? You can download the recording for free.