September 12, 2007	Volume 7, Issue 37
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Using the Parking Lot

by Rick Brenner

In meetings, keeping a list we call the "parking lot" is a fairly standard practice. As the discussion unfolds, we "park" there any items that arise that aren't on the agenda, but which we believe could be important someday soon. Here are some tips for making your parking lot process more effective.

hether you call it the parking lot, the issues bin, or the issues list, accumulating contributed items that aren't quite on topic during a given meeting can help keep the meeting focused and moving forward. Here are some tips to help you get more from the practice, or to motivate you to start.

Make it visible

The piping plover, a threatened species of shore bird. One conjecture about the incidence of parking lot items is that we tend to generate them when our creativity combines with innovative projects in settings that lack sufficient resources, or sufficient stability, to support fuller exploration of the many opportunities we uncover. A similar phenomenon might be occurring in nature. Observations indicate the existence of a species gradient from the Earth's equator down to the poles. If we consider extinction as analogous to the evolutionary "parking lot," it's possible that more species are being "parked" at high latitudes due to perturbations in high-latitude environments, such as the blooming of the human species (in the case of the plover), or perhaps repeated glaciations. Whether the environment is responsible, or whether differences in speciation and extinction rates are responsible, is an open question. See a recent letter to Science by Charles R. Marshall, and a responding letter from Dolph Schluter and Jason Weir, in Science, 27 August 2007, p. 451. Their original article, "The latitudinal gradient in recent speciation and extinction rates of birds and mammals," appeared in Science, 16 March 2007, p. 1574. Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Enter the items on a flip chart or other medium that's visible to all. Visibility helps deter duplication, and it might spur additional creativity.

Enlist a valet

A meeting of more than about seven people needs a parking lot valet — someone to record the items, and to verify that the contributors agree with the wording. For smaller meetings, the scribe or recorder can play the valet role.

Encourage self-parking

Encourage meeting attendees to self-park. That is, if a contributor knows in advance that a contribution will be parked, why not add it to the parking lot after the meeting? Although there is some value in announcing the contribution during the meeting, the time lost doing so is also valuable.

Review at meeting's end

A very brief end-of-meeting review of the parking lot should assign to each item someone from leadership to "own" it and follow it to resolution.

Follow up

Every item from the parking lot should make a later appearance as a part of a future agenda item, or on the next edition of the parking lot resolution list, or on the cumulative parking-lot-awaiting-resolution list. Nothing should disappear into the void. Each item's owner is responsible for tracking it.

Track the contributors

Track the contributors of parked items. Investigate why some people repeatedly offer items that end in the parking lot. Do they not understand the agenda? Are they uniquely brilliant? Are their concerns being ignored? Why are they not self-parking?

Maintain a parking lot history Every item from the parking lot
should make a later appearance
as a part of a future agenda item
or a parking lot resolution list

Compile all parking lots, and examine them for patterns. Are some kinds of items repeatedly parked? If so, perhaps these are issues that need attention, or perhaps some people are preventing them from getting attention.

Track the context

Track the contexts in which parking lot items appear. A high incidence of parked items might indicate that the group hasn't been proactive in that topic area — the issues involved are "running ahead" of the group.

Any tool can be abused, including the parking lot. The Chair, for instance, can use it to stifle discussion of any topic not explicitly on the agenda. Tracking parked items can limit this risk, but you might have to deal with parking lot abuse as a performance issue. Since that can be a complex question, and it isn't on today's agenda, I've added it to the parking lot.  Top    Next Issue

The term parking lot is an Americanism. Even though the British call them car parks, my colleague Graham Oakes reports that the term "parking lot" works in the context of meetings in the United Kingdom. My colleague Nynke Fokma reports from other European languages: Bent (Danish) says, "Boette" (Marmelade jar); Emmanuel (French) says, "Parking"; Nynke (Dutch) says, "Even opzij?" (Aside for now?); and Marco (Italian) says, "Possiamo parlarne dopo?" (Can we talk about this later?).

More reports: Mary Ann (Tagalog (Phillipines)) says, "Tsaká na" (Later). Christine (Sydney, Australia, where she works with environmental organizations) says, "Let's park that in the bike rack for later."

If you send me your term from your own language, I'll post it.

Do you spend your days scurrying from meeting to meeting? Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings much more productive and less stressful — and a lot more rare. Order Now!

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Running Your Personal Squirrel Cage

As Glen rounded the corner behind the old oak, entering the last mile of his morning run, he suddenly realized that he was thinking about picking up the dry cleaning tomorrow and changing his medical appointment. Physically, he was jogging in a park, but mentally, he was running in a squirrel cage. How does this happen? What can we do about it?

Games for Meetings: Part I

We spend a lot of time and emotional energy in meetings, much of it engaged in any of dozens of ritualized games. Here's Part I of a little catalog of some of our favorites, and what we can do about them.

When We Need a Little Help

Sometimes we get in over our heads — too much work, work we don't understand, or even complex politics. We can ask for help, but we often forget that we can. Even when we remember, we sometimes hold back. Why is asking for help, or remembering that we can ask, so difficult? How can we make it easier?

Names and Faces

Most of us feel recognized, respected and acknowledged when others use our names. And many of us have difficulty remembering the names of others, especially those we don't know well. How can we get better at connecting names and faces?

Virtual Communications: Part I

Participating in or managing a virtual team presents special communications challenges. Here are some guidelines for communicating with members of virtual teams.

See also Personal, Team and Organizational Effectiveness and Effective Meetings for more related articles.

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Public seminars

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

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  your calendarAppleton, Wisconsin: September 13, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarWeston, Wisconsin: September 14, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarCrowne Plaza Hotel, Cromwell, CT: September 15, Monthly Meeting, Southern New England Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarFort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.
   

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarOverland Park Convention Center, 6000 College Blvd., Overland Park, KS 66211: October 5, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 18, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communications: Models and Applications

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program we'll explain — and show you how to use — a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. We'll place particular emphasis on a very tricky situation — saying no to power. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarPortland World Trade Center: October 19, Conference, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMarist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601: October 22, Professional Development Day, Hudson Valley Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Lessons in Risk Management for Leaders

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough. But to organizational leaders and project managers, the story is fascinating. We'll use the history of this event to explore lessons in risk management and its application to organizational efforts. A fascinating and refreshing look at risk management from the vantage point of history. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: February 2, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).
   

The Organizational Politics of Risk Management

Organizational politics presents a risk not often accounted for by risk models. It creates one of the many components of risk management risk — the risk that the risk management process itself is inadequate. Political considerations can lead to risk products that seem acceptable but which are fatally flawed; or worse, the risk products are plainly unserviceable, but everyone chooses not to acknowledge the problem. In this program we'll examine how organizational politics influences risk management, and discuss several measures for mitigating its effects. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a teleseminar: September 1, 2011, Teleseminar, Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI).