By: Matt Stewart, Principal Engineer & Managing Partner, Cox-Walker & Associates
Company initiatives often manifest at the plant level in the form of site assessments by multidiscipline teams. As an energetic and talented young professional, you may land the responsibility of leading such an assessment. That responsibility can seem daunting, especially when your assessment could take weeks, or require a team of people with seniority, distinct technical backgrounds, or strong personalities. Do not worry. With considered preparation and attention to meeting conduct, you can lead an assessment that produces quality results efficiently, even with significant challenges in complexity and scope.
To facilitate a successful assessment, you must know your role as leader. Understand that these evaluations require multidiscipline teams by design. Each member—including the leader—provides a unique perspective and function. As leader, your role is to understand the purpose, scope, and objectives of the assessment and guide the team through the completion of those objectives. Ultimately, the results reflect the efforts of the entire team. When you look at what appears to be an enormous task, remember: You provide but one of many functions for this team. Focus on performing that function well.
Preparing Effectively
Your function as leader begins before there is even a team to lead. Start by gathering company documents on the initiative. Reach out to the author of the initiative, confirm you have all relevant documents, and close any gaps in your understanding. If company procedures refer to general industry publications, gather those also. Pore over every document you collect until you understand them inside and out. You are the subject matter expert in this regard. Your understanding of the initiative will be your team’s understanding as well. Prepare yourself for your function so that your team can best serve their own functions when the meeting begins.
One early determination is the core disciplines to put on the team. Consider which disciplines should attend every session and which are simply consultants. Your core team does not need to include everyone who may end up contributing. Too many voices can be a distraction. When a specialist gets bored waiting to contribute in their area of expertise, they may attempt to contribute well outside of it. Worse yet, they may contribute on extraneous topics like last night’s game. Consider identifying roles that only have sparing contributions to the team, then collect a list of questions for that role as they arise. Bring that person in to review their list only at a designated time, such as the first hour of the next session.
When you schedule sessions, be considerate of your team’s standard work responsibilities that often do not cease just because they receive this assignment. Consider leaving gaps in the morning or afternoon where they can take care of other business. A team is seldom productive for more than four to six hours, and you likely have better participation if they know you spared part of their day to tackle other work.
Time in team sessions is limited, therefore preparing meeting materials beforehand is critical to productivity. If you studied pages of wordy standards and procedures on the initiative, consider distilling the information down to several convenient handouts. You are still the subject matter expert on the purpose, scope and objectives, but a quick and easy means to bring the team up to speed is beneficial. Also, anticipate parts of the procedures that the team will reference most often, and bring that information out of paragraph form into usable tools such as tables or flowcharts.
If possible, observe another group’s assessment with a mind towards snags you can avoid with additional preparation. Compile reference materials (e.g., drawings, specifications, operating procedures) ahead of the meeting and prepare packets of the most relevant materials to distribute to the team. Avoid too much paper distraction by providing ancillary materials as a single copy for the room, or else a digital copy to project on the screen.
Running Team Meetings
Get to your meeting room early enough to work out any technical difficulties you might encounter. Before your meeting, practice working with the program you will use to document the assessment. Better yet, recruit a scribe with that experience. Consider putting some of the documentation framework into the program ahead of time. The assessment is a team effort, but the team will appreciate your efforts to reduce the time they spend watching someone type.
Teams also appreciate the little things. Providing snacks and refreshments go a long way towards keeping a team happy, and happy teams are helpful teams. A coffee maker nearby is almost a necessity. When meetings approach a half-day or more, providing lunch is a good way to keep attendance up, and also helps you to start promptly at the end of the break since your team stays captive.
When sessions begin, keeping the team engaged is key. Your preparations will keep up the tempo, as will a plan of attack that is broken into easily digestible morsels. Tell the team the plan and keep them informed of progress. Teams feed on visible progress. To maintain momentum, keep checks on conversations not directly impacting the assessment. A really great idea may be spinning off in a side discussion, but if it is not progressing the assessment forward, park it. A “Parking Lot” sheet for such occasions makes it easy to keep track of a good idea, while also ensuring its discussion does not distract from the task at hand. In addition to avoiding digressions, be vocal and consistent with other meeting rules. The rules may include staying engaged, being punctual, listening, and not criticizing others.
Final Thoughts
With considered preparation and attention to meeting conduct, you increase the probability of marching through your assessment with success and relative ease. As a young professional, successfully leading a multidiscipline team through a site assessment is a great boost to your confidence, and to your résumé. You may find to your own surprise that you wear the leadership role well.
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