Have you ever faced this situation when you are pulled into a meeting, and you don't know what to do or what to ask? Or ad hoc meeting set up with you, and you don't have any idea about what to discuss? I remember my days when I came to a meeting unprepared or suddenly pulled into a meeting, and after that I am completely blank. I have seen people who are present in the meeting, listening end to end but could not get anything out of the meeting.
👉 Here is my suggestion what you can do in case you came unprepared in a meeting -
☑️ Stop doing other tasks while you are in a meeting: Many of us do this. If we are not able to understand anything in the meeting, we tend to do other tasks to utilize the time. But I suggest you stop that. Try to listen, understand what people are discussing. If you feel you are not required, then you leave the meeting and do other tasks. But if you are in a meeting, show your presence to increase your visibility and capability.
☑️ Ask specific questions: I will try to explain this with an example. Assume that you are working on a integration project and there is a meeting with the stakeholders who are the member of the other systems. You are not sure where to start the discussion? In that case you can start with the basic questions like:
- What is the source location?
- What is the destination location?
- How the files will be moved from one folder to other folder?
- What is the format of the files? What is the frequency of the files to be transferred? What is the max size of the file?
- What is the security protocol assigned?
- What is the dependency on other systems?
- What is the support contact in case anything goes wrong after the go-live?
These are very basic questions which you can use if you are completely new to a integration project. Similarly, there are other types of meetings, where you can think of similar types of basic questions.
Never hesitate to ask questions, as they say there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers
☑️ Check out the participants: Check out the participants of the meeting. It will give you a idea who will join the meeting, what is their background. It will also help you to ask questions. In this way you will know what type of question can be asked to which participants.
☑️ Make Notes: Try to make notes for your personal reference. Connect with people after the meeting for the items you did not understand.
☑️ Send out a MOM: If you send out a MOM, not only that helps other participants to remember what was discussed, but also it proves that how much you were attentive during the meeting. Sometimes it feels a extra burden to collect information and send out MOM. But the way you prepare the notes, templates, highlighting the action items/ risks/ dependency - defines your knowledge and skillset.
Above are some basic steps to help you perform well in a sudden meeting. Let me know if you faced similar scenario. Happy Learning
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