If you have been a project manager for a while, you must have encountered situations where a meeting needs to be setup at a very short notice or no notice. General practice is to NOT setup same day meetings. For this article we will call same day meetings as short notice meetings – From few hours’ notice to very little notice.

Here are some important points to consider:

  • Keep Calm

  • Urgency Appropriateness

  • Audience Pickup

  • Keep it Short

  • Pre-Meeting Sync up

  • Keep Leadership/Management Out of Problem Solving

  • Record Meeting/Take Notes

  • Update Leadership/Management

  • Post Mortem

  • Risk Management

  • Don’t Overdo It

Keep Calm: This is the first and foremost thing to keep in mind. High severity/priority things do come up in corporate life. You may be surprised to see your leadership and senior folks freaking out, this doesn’t help. Do NOT copy this behavior thinking that they must be doing the right thing. Act urgently but stay calm. This is the time that differentiates men from boys and you will see many ‘senior’ boys. Everyone will appreciate your calmness and poise once you are over the hump including those who were freaking out.

Urgency Appropriateness: Ask yourself if the situation is urgent enough to warrant such a response. While there can be situations like P0/P1 production issues which may require all hands onboard with multiple teams, an overwhelming majority of meetings can wait at least for one day.

Audience Pickup: Any short notice meeting is a strain on participants calendar, so put extra care to ONLY invite folks who are essential. You are asking these people to put their plans for the day on the side and join your cause.

Keep it Short: Go for the shortest possible timeframe required. You do not want people complaining that you are not only randomizing them but wasting their time too!

Pre-Meeting Sync up: You may want to walk over to some of the meeting participants’ desk or try catching them over Instant messaging and give tan idea on why you are setting up this urgent meeting. They will appreciate it, may give you valuable input regarding critical participants and meeting duration. This will ensure that you will have a productive meeting.

Keep Leadership/Management Out of Problem Solving: While many of these urgent meetings are setup due to a direct ask from your leadership, I am yet to see any urgent meeting go smoothly where management gets involved in solving problems. As soon as management and leadership are in the room, it is less of a meeting and more of theatrics. The focus moves from issue resolution to ‘subtle’ finger pointing and not getting dinged in front of your management. You may let your meeting participants know that you are trying resolve the issue at our level and later leadership can be made aware of the outcome. This will give you more amiable and open environment focused on issue resolution.

Record Meeting/Take Notes: This being a high stake/urgent meeting, record it if you can. There are many software products available which can help you record the meeting (audio and video) Taking notes on main discussion points, action items, next steps will also be useful. You may also ask for help in taking notes from other attendants.

Update Leadership/Management: Generally, any such meeting is high visibility and requires an update to stakeholders as soon as possible. Keep your update short and to the point focused on main issues. Clearly call out any ask for help. Do not dilute the message or tell long stories in the update. These are not meeting minutes about who said what. This should be issue focused with clear timelines, responsibilities and next steps.

Post Mortem: Depending upon the meeting, there may be value in conducting a post mortem of this meeting. This can be done with a small core group or you can do it yourself. If too many such meetings are happening, then you need to get to the root cause and address it fast.

 Risk Management: This may be a good opportunity to re-visit your risk management strategy. Are your risks materializing resulting in setting of these meetings? Is your risks and contingencies log updated?

Don’t Overdo It: While an impromptu meeting occasionally may not be too bad, too many of these can create a bad impression about your management skills or lack thereof. Put the checks and balances in place so this doesn’t become a pattern.

Many situations may require setting up and leading short notice meetings -Keep your calm, choose your audience judiciously, keep the discussion focused and update the stakeholders on meeting results. You will learn a lot not only about systems but about people too!