Question

Let's imagine that you are the project manager in the IT department of a large company. The project team is creating a maintenance plan. The team consists of three technicians, a network architect, a training specialist, and you, the project manager. The project is currently in the project-execution phase, and it is time to have your first project status-update meeting.
Here are some tips for conducting a successful project status-update meeting:
• Determine the meeting place and time.
• Invite the appropriate employees.
• Be clear about the purpose of the meeting.
• Create an agenda, send it to team members in advance, and stick to it.
• Ask all members to report their status.
• Discuss solutions to issues.
• End the meeting on time.
• Send out meeting minutes.
Questions:
Step One: Plan the meeting. Planning a meeting includes selecting the place and time, inviting the appropriate people, determining the purpose of the meeting, and creating an agenda. In the area below, compose an e-mail to send to the team members. In the e-mail, include the place and time, the purpose, and the agenda.

Step Two: Conduct a project meeting. Ask the team members (your classmates) to report their status on tasks. They can make up their status, but remind them that they should state what they have completed, what they will be working on next, if they have any issues, and if they need any help from team members. Discuss solutions to any issues that arise. As the facilitator of the meeting, it is your responsibility to keep the team members on task. Take notes during the meeting.

Step Three: Send out meeting minutes. In the area below, compose an e-mail to send to the team members with the meeting minutes. The meeting minutes are a written summary of a meeting including a list of attendees, a summary of the discussion, the decisions that were made, and any tasks that were assigned.

Answer 1

As a Project Manager in the IT department, let's consider that the Maintenance Plan includes the following:

A Monthly check on:

• Software and Hardware upgrades
• Security Patches
• Software Installations
• Server Re-boots
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

The Project Execution Plan generally describes How, When, and By whom the targeted action is to be taken and also consists of details about the project's products, tasks, timelines, costs, and benefits.

With the given information about the members in the Project Team, the following are the answers:

Answer One - E-mail recipients will be the 3 Technicians, the Network Architect, Training Specialist

Draft E-mail as below:

Dear Project members,

This is an invite for our very first project update meeting. Please refer to the below for meeting coordinates:

Place - Meeting Room 'B'

Time - 10 am to 12 pm

Purpose - To understand how many Software/ Hardware upgrades have been made

- To get an update of any security issues while maintenance of security patches

- To get an update of new software installed and any re-configuration done

- To get an update on UAT results and corrective actions taken

Agenda of the meeting:

• The Network Architect to present the monthly server re-boot schedule and tasks completed along with a presentation on corrective actions taken for security issues
• The Technicians to share data on the number of System upgrades made and present details on system re-configurations, if any.
• The Training specialist to update on UAT's undertaken and present the outcome

I look forward to this meeting and discussion.

Thanks and Regards

Answer Two - This is to be practically done along with your classmates. You may use the above pointers in Answer one to steer the discussion with your classmates.

Answer Three as below -

Minutes of the Project Status-Update Meeting

List of Attendees: Technician A, Technician B, Technician C, Network Architect, Training Specialist, Project Manager

Summary of the Discussion:

Server Re-boot - The Network Architect presented the Server re-boot schedule and the tasks undertaken. The project team raised a concern about the frequency of the re-booting activity and suggested to increase it.

Security Patches - The Network Architect also shared the details of security issues faced during the monthly maintenance activity and explained corrective actions taken. Technician B suggested testing another security patch.

System Upgrades - The Technicians presented details of Hardware and Software upgrades made during the month. They have not had a need to re-configure any program

UAT - The Training specialist shared the timelines of UAT performed during the month and shared concern on the running late on the schedule due to the non-availability of users. Self, the project manager, mentioned about raising this concern with the respective department manager. The Training specialist has scheduled a training calendar in the next month for users, for the latest software installed.

The following Tasks have been assigned:

• The Network Architect to try out the suggested security patch in the current week and revert with results latest by mid next week.
• The Network Architect to perform re-booting every weekend starting from the current week
• The Project Manager (Self) to talk to the department manager and revert with user availability for UAT, latest by tomorrow EOD.

It was decided that the next status-update meeting will be held during the 1st week of the next month.

Thanks and Regards

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