When your organisation is about to undertake a website or development project it’s important to have the right framework from the start. This means having a clearly defined process that sets out clear and understandable goals and ensures that everyone is on board with them. In order to do this, we insist on a strategy, road-mapping or discovery meeting. We have found in our 22 years in web design and development that strategic meetings are a 100% necessary step in making sure your project goes smoothly and is successful in the long run. This is part of our proven process.
If you’re launching a new project or initiative at work, there are some things you need to think about before getting started. Planning and preparation will help ensure that your team has everything they need to be successful and complete their tasks with minimal friction along the way.
What is a strategy meeting?
A strategy meeting is a gathering of individuals, typically team members or stakeholders, who come together to discuss and explore potential strategies or solutions to a specific problem or challenge.
The purpose of such a meeting is to share ideas, gather information, and generate insights that can inform decision-making and help guide the development of a plan or project.
During a strategy meeting, participants may engage in a variety of activities, such as brainstorming, idea generation, data analysis, and discussion of potential risks and opportunities. At Servon our job is to facilitate the meeting, helping to guide the conversation and keep it focused on the task at hand.
Overall, the goal of a strategy meeting is to bring together a diverse group of perspectives and expertise, to uncover new insights and opportunities, and to develop a plan of action that can help us to understand and help achieve your goals.
This meeting will guide the rest of the project. We use the strategy meeting to discuss the project timeline, the methods that we will use, the success metrics you want to measure, and anything else that’s important for the project’s overall health. We will also want to make sure we have the resources we need to be successful while we are working on your project.
Why are strategy meetings important?
In order to ensure your project is as successful as possible, we will set up a series of strategy calls early on in the project. We won’t start the project without having gone through these meetings.
The meetings will help to identify potential roadblocks and issues, and it will provide your team with the guidance they need to avoid pitfalls. A strong strategy meeting will help us to avoid unexpected problems and issues later on in the project. It can also make it much easier for you to follow the project and can reassure you that we are staying on track. We believe that the structure of these meetings is important. We want the meetings to be open-ended and not too rigid. This will allow us to be flexible and make changes as necessary.
We learn about your current situation
In order to start your project off right, we will need to examine your current business situation. We will dive into your organisation’s current state to make sure we are aware of your business’ current issues or concerns regarding your website/operating procedures/marketing etc. This will help us to identify what is important to you and what we can do to fix your problem.
You may want to do some research to find out how your organisation has struggled with certain projects in the past, for example, you may take a look at your current website’s analytics or brush up on any PPC campaigns that did or did not work out. You may want to share your experiences and encounters from past projects to help identify areas that need improvement. We are experts on lead generation, digital marketing and websites, so we can help you overcome these issues.
Establishing the target audience
One of the reasons we start with a strategy meeting is to really dig deep into who your preferred customers are, the type of people they are, their age, where they live and the products or services that they want from you. On the flip side, if you have a product and/or service that you are not 100% sure of the ideal target market, we will help you uncover who they potentially are.
Figuring this out early is vital to the success of your digital marketing project. This is especially important when we are designing a new website, or setting up your content marketing or PPC marketing. It dictates our angle of approach for your project and ensures we can do the best job that we can.
How we Run our Strategy Meetings
We conduct our strategy meetings in a structured way so that we can cover everything that needs to be discussed. This will help us to make sure we don’t miss any important details and that we get all of the necessary information out in the open. If you’re trying to hold your own strategy meeting for your business, you can use this structure to guide your meeting and make sure you don’t miss anything important.
- Who’s involved in the project? (Introductions of our team and your team)
- What is the purpose of this meeting?
- Why are we having it?
- What is the current situation?
- What are the project goals and objectives?
- What is the scope and scale of the project?
- Who’s the target audience?
- What resources do we need for the project?
- What are the project timelines?
- What are the success metrics for this project?
- What are the risks and potential issues?
- What is the next step for this project?
Standing Meetings
Once the project has started, we encourage everyone involved to attend a standing meeting. This is a recurring meeting that is held on a regular schedule, in our case we tend to hold them weekly.. The purpose of a standing meeting is typically to discuss the ongoing project or initiatives, provide updates, and ensure that team members are aligned around common goals and objectives.
Here are some common components of a standing meeting:
- Agenda: A standing meeting should have a clear agenda that outlines the topics to be covered and the goals of the meeting. This helps keep the discussion on track and ensures that all relevant topics are addressed.
- Attendees: Standing meetings should have a set list of attendees who are expected to participate in each meeting. This can help ensure that everyone who needs to be involved in the discussion is present and that no one is left out.
- Time and Location: Standing meetings should have a regular schedule and location to make it easy for attendees to plan ahead and attend the meeting. If the meeting is virtual, the link or details to join the meeting should be clearly communicated.
- Updates: One of the key purposes of a standing meeting is to provide updates on ongoing projects or initiatives. Team members should come prepared with updates on their progress and any challenges they have encountered.
- Action Items: Standing meetings often end with a summary of action items, which are specific tasks or next steps that team members need to complete before the next meeting. This helps ensure that progress is being made and that everyone is accountable for their part of the project.
These reviews will allow you to stay up to date with our progress, catch up on potential issues that we have found as they happen and to get your input on what you see so far. These are fairly informal meetings but we like to stick to a proven agenda structure that covers:
1) Victories
Essentially what we achieved since our last standing meeting. So, any milestones that have been achieved and cleared, any deliverables that have needed to be approved etc.
2) Issues
Where did we fall short since our last standing meeting? Delays happen for one reason or another, and these meetings ensure we don’t fall behind on the overall project.
3) Priorities
What’s going to get done next week? What’s next in the pipeline?
4) Metrics
This means milestones, completed milestones, outstanding milestones, next milestone deadline, go-live deadline, and any scope change orders that happen within the project.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above article has helped to outline the importance of strategy meetings and how they can help your project be successful. While it can be easy to get excited about the start of a new project, it’s important to us that we take the time to set everything up correctly. This includes having the right framework for your meetings and making sure your team and our team is prepared for the project ahead. If you have a good initial strategy meeting, and follow it up with standing meetings, you can be sure your project is off to a strong start and continues to be a success.
Book a No-Obligation 30 minutes call with our digital marketing experts
Our 30 minute “getting-to-know-you” phone call is designed to see if your project is something we are able to help with. Be prepared to discuss your business fundamentals, your hopes & expectations of your project and your current business challenges. Schedule a call now.