CST 499 Week 2

CST 499 Week 2

This week was mainly used to work on my project. We received some good pointers on job hunting, resume building, and cover letters. I was able to finalize my resume and cover letter.

Last weeks article was in regards to holding successful team meetings. Successful team meetings have 3 parts to them. This is the planning phase, the actual meeting phase, and the post meeting phase. During the planning phase, you should layout who should be present for a meeting and the goals outlined for the meeting. Also evaluate whether a meeting is even necessary. Sometimes a goal can be achieved by a simple string of emails. As a team leader, you want to make sure everyone of importance can attend the set meeting; otherwise, it may be wiser to postpone the meeting to allow for everyone to contribute and achieve the goal. You should provide documentation before the meeting to allow the people attending to review and form ideas ahead of time. More can come from the meeting when the people attending have time to think about the agenda. During the meeting, the team leader should set a positive tone and keep on track with the agenda. Of course, the documents distributed before the meeting should be used during the meeting. You do not want to set a precedence of people feeling pre-distributed work is unimportant. As team leader you also want to make sure everyone participates in the meeting. Finally, you want to create an action plan for post meeting follow up. After the meeting, meeting minutes and the action plan should be published within 24 hours. It is important to make good on the action plan and follow up with everyone at the established time on their current status on the action plan. Finally a debrief of the meeting is important where everyone is allowed to discuss what went well and what they would change about the meeting. Using these meeting principles can help a team leader achieve the goals they strive for within their team. I hope to be a team lead in software development and using these principles will help me when the time arises.