Jim Thompson

Email Jim at jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com

I've often been asked, "how often should our project team meet once our project is under way?"

My answer is based on your average spend over the life of the project and at peak times (especially in rebuilds).

On small projects, don't let the spend exceed 10% of the project between meetings. In other words, on a project of $1 million or less that is going to last 5 months, you may get by with formal meetings twice per month, with ad hoc meetings in between.

On a greenfield mill project, meet at least once per day (in the morning) and perhaps a smaller group with an afternoon/early evening closeout on specific tasks assigned on some given morning.

On rebuilds, at least once per shift. Same is true for checkout and startup.

Who is invited to these meetings? Everyone--do not create silos and do not leave any part of the team out.

Who runs these meetings? The individual responsible to management for spending the funds. They may delegate portions of the meetings to others, but they are in charge for they are accountable.

Another way to look at the spacing of the meetings is this. Don't let any more money be spent between meetings than you as the project manager is willing to lose. Caution--be reasonable--if you are the nervous type, the answer is not to meet continuously, you will micromanage everyone to death.

What is the agenda?

Always start with safety, of course. Your safety oversight should have already set in place the safety parameters that will be measured at each meeting and the protocol for follow-up if something significant happens. Do you ever have everyone "stand down" in response to a safety incident? Absolutely. Again, this should be defined ahead of time and be an automatic response. I was once on a site where there was the constant wailing of ambulances for many days. The person in charge never had us stand down--once. Ridiculous.

The management team, led by the project manager, should pre-determine the agenda for your meetings, no matter their frequency. Don't make it up as you go. This does not mean it is completely rigid, if it is necessary to take a "deep dive" into an area of potential trouble, do that on the fly.

We cannot overemphasize safety on capital projects. The team is often new to each other and likely new to the surroundings. Have a continuous safety emphasis.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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