• You assume that everybody is overloaded and that they just don't have the time to give to creating or optimizing a project plan.
• You don't think they've got much valuable to contribute.
• You don't want to complicate or prolong the project with input from others.
• You work in a 'tell' culture where soliciting the input of contributors is not well accepted.
• You don't want to look like you don't have all the answers already.

Why You Should

You harness the intangible but enormously valuable collective creativity, experience and motivation of a group that feels valued and that has a group identity (ala "The Alpha Project Team").

You take a large step toward either elevating a 'too conservative' Prime Mover project idea or you build a credible case for encouraging the Prime Mover to 're-think' (read 'forget') an unworkable, low yield and/or soon-to-be-obsolete project idea.

You transform a business need (commonly the Prime's reason for funding the project is to satisfy a profit or cost-related business need) into a specific outcome from which significantly more accurate and measurable ROI estimates can be made.

You find out how the project work will fit into each participant's existing priority matrix. In other words, you find out how likely they are to stop doing other tasks to devote enough time, when it's needed, for you to get what the project needs when it needs it.

You develop a possible schedule, that has more in common with the realities of the work environment that with potentially unrealistic Prime Mover desires.

You know whether you need your Prime to use his/her influence to 'adjust' organizational priorities so that your project participants are able to take time from other tasks and use that time to help you make tighter deadlines.

You know about and can plan around the full range of schedule and result-busting problems (vacations, shutdowns, unavailable talent, buggy software, etc., etc, etc.).

You begin the ongoing process of identifying what it is about the project that participants like or value. (Smart project managers inventory every possible project benefit they can for each individual project contributor so that, when the going gets rough, s/he can use benefits to maintain momentum).

You put yourself in the position of editing the good ideas of your project team rather than trying the much harder task of authoring a plan from beginning to end. (You also get a much better and much better accepted result).

 

Some Tips On How To

Decide beforehand whether you want to use the meeting for creative input or for planning. Although there can be considerable creativity in the problem solving that planners do as they optimize specific steps toward your project objective, the ground rules for brainstorming (or any of the other creativity techniques) are distinctly different than those that apply to planning.

Let your participants know what to expect and how to prepare by sending them advance information (a meeting objective, the purpose of the project, an agenda, meeting duration, etc.).

Use a scribe who can write quickly and who isn't going to be a member of the project team.

Be aware that this meeting will go a long way toward setting the tone of the project and either attracting or repelling participants. If you run an overly strict or an overly loose meeting, you're likely to discourage some potential participants who have better things to do than have orders barked or their time wasted by someone who isn't their boss.

Check out the potential participants for ability, motivation and the tendency to play well with others. Better to start looking for back up participants or replacements now than later.

Make a BIG effort to complete the meeting on time and with valuable results to show for the investment. End the meeting with a summary of results and a clear statement of next steps. After the meeting, circulate a concise summary of results and commitments to the people who attended, to their bosses and to any people who 'need to know'.