MAINTAIN AND STABILISE YOUR PROJECT - Develop a style of meetings
Our experience: our meeting style evolved as our project progressed, but it was only through discussions amongst the team that it became obvious that our style was pertinent to the project, and very different to approaches used within the sciences, in particular. Meetings were always an open forum discussion with a flexible agenda and little structure. Appreciating our unique meeting style paved the way for us to start evaluating other, what at first seemed to be, trivial, processual elements of our project which were actually vital to exploring and making sense of our interdisciplinarity.
Why?
This might seem a strange thing to be in here but meeting styles vary enormously between the disciplines, so it is worth thinking about with regards your project. Determining a particular style will enable everyone to know what to expect at each meeting and the style may become pertinent to your particular interdisciplinarity.
The following may help:
When?
• How often do you want to meet?
• Will such meetings be face to face? Or over the phone?
• It is recommended that you do meet face to face (according to the literature) regularly – maybe once a quarter.
Where?
• Where will face to face meetings be held? Will they be onsite? Offsite?
• Offsite meetings may be more productive in that they enable you to get away from the usual interruptions of phone and email, but is the extra travel an efficient use of time/resource?
• If you are a multi-institutional project how will this work? Will you take it turns to host? Or meet somewhere convenient for all parties?
How?
• What format will the meetings take?
• Will it be a case of each partner presenting and then questions after? Or will it be a more informal discussion around the project and its progression?
• Will there be an agenda and meeting minutes? Who will be responsible? Will you have a chair?
Who?
• Do all partners have to attend each meeting?
• Might there be a point where separate parts of the project meet if they are working on specific elements?
• Can you envisage a core team/ versus a more peripheral team (see Further reading for more info).