Guidelines for project meetings

Project meetings are when we discuss about our project. But I have multiple on-going projects, so it is very likely that I don't remember much about our previous meeting. In fact, my memory is so short-lived that I would forget about what we discussed the day after the meeting. Don't assume that I remember the goal, the roadmap, and the progress of the project. To get the most out of the meetings, you need to help me. You need to be organized and prepared. Here are some guidelines.

• Keep a single document for all meetings:

  • Each week, new content for each meeting must be added, and it should include:

    • your presentation during the meeting;

    • notes of the discussion during the meetings;

    • a list of actionable items

  • Use GoogleSlide or PPTX (stored on Google Drive) and give me and everyone in the project the permission to edit your document. You can also use GoogleDoc, but I strongly recommend slides.

• Before the meeting:

  • Prepare several slides to help you present during the meeting

  • Use figures, tables, and graphs to show your idea, the architecture of your network, and the results.

  • Draw the process diagram for the steps that you did or how the components of your method connect with each other. Trust me, this will be much clearer than saying I did this, that, and then or saying the output of A is fed into B and then C.

• During the meeting:

  • Start by reminding me about your project:

    • make sure I understand where we were and where we are heading to

    • summarize the hypothesis and the main idea

    • Show the list of actionable items from the last meeting

  • Present your slides:

    • Describe what you did and show the results

    • Don't just merely show the numerical values such as accuracy. You must interpret and analyze the results

  • Note down the key points of our discussion

  • Write down the list of actionable items

• After the meeting:

  • Add more details to the meeting notes, and complete the list of actionable items

  • Convince yourself that you should do the items in the list of actionable items. Don't do them because I told you to do them. You must see the strong reasons why you should do them.

• Templates:

  • Blank PPTX template

  • An example with detailed instructions