Multiple departments are involved in my company's exhibiting plans, and as such, our project-management process is always a mess. How can I facilitate more effective meetings and a smoother experience for everyone?

Wrangling multiple tasks, myriad personalities, and the countless moving parts and pieces of an exhibit- or event-management program is anything but easy. But over the years I've discovered that the following strategies and online tools help grease the wheels and make project management more efficient.

Select Players Carefully
At the start of the planning process, think critically about who needs to be involved in your program and who has a stake in any decisions made. For example, if you're planning your annual exhibiting calendar, you might need employees from various product-management divisions, your upper-level management, the sales team, the graphics department, your brand-management team, and so on. So first figure out which players should have a place on the field.

Then cull the roster a bit. Your team will work best if it contains the fewest number of people necessary. Each player should have the power to make decisions for the group he or she represents and enough authority or leadership prowess to ensure that the members of his or her group will abide by these decisions. If possible, also select people who are process oriented, hard working, able to work well in a small group, and readily available with their time and talent.

Carefully choosing your team and limiting the number of members is a critical step in the process – and one that I've mishandled. When I assembled a project-management team, one department, which needed just one representative at the table, wanted five people involved instead. Being newer to the job at the time, I obliged. But as it turned out, those five people each had vastly differing opinions. Thus, rather than having one voice from this particular group, I had multiple personalities warring with each other for dominance. So I reiterate: Less is more.

Meet Regularly (and Quickly)
Consistency is a project-management mainstay, as team members need to know when they're needed and what is required of them. Nothing sets their minds at ease like a regular meeting at the same time every week (or every other week) and at the exact same locale. That way people can block out this time on their calendars months in advance and arrive better prepared to contribute. After all, there are few things more frustrating than suddenly having to cram a new meeting into your schedule when you've hardly got time for a bathroom break as it is.

I'm lucky in that all members of my planning team are located in the same building, which makes getting everyone together fairly easy. But if you're not so fortunate, develop a consistent remote call-in procedure so your meetings go off without a technological hitch. Also consider one of the many online meeting tools that include live video feeds, such as Skype or GoToMeeting.

Keep these regular meetings short. It's better to meet more frequently for shorter periods of time – one hour has been optimal for me – than to hammer out a marathon session. The longer the meeting, the more likely that its participants will become distracted, tune out, check email, step out to make phone calls, etc. Get in, get it done, and get out.

As a final note, try to refrain from pop-up meetings whenever possible. Participants usually arrive scattered, and decisions are often made in haste. So when something critical happens, notify team members via email and instruct them to come to the next meeting armed with solutions.

Develop (and Stick to) an Agenda
For your meeting to be effective, its participants need to arrive fully prepared, and the meeting itself must progress in an organized manner within the time frame allotted. To facilitate these demands, you need a solid plan. So develop an agenda of no more than one page, and then adhere to it throughout the duration of the meeting. You might consider assigning each topic a time frame to keep you on track. For instance, one task might be to "finalize all product placements for the XYZ Show exhibit (10 minutes)" or to "brainstorm a theme for the upcoming integrated program (30 minutes)."

Send the agenda to participants a day or more prior to the meeting. This will ensure they have time to fully prepare for any contributions they will be expected to make, arm themselves with additional information, or even glean opinions from other members of their department to aid the decision-making process. I also like to add time lines to the top of my agenda. For example, I might include the number of days until a key show or the drop-dead date when our printer needs our new graphic copy. These simple reminders seem to keep surprises and missed deadlines at bay.

Arm Yourself With Online Tools
Granted, technology isn't the solution to every problem, but several online-sharing tools have kept our team on the same page between meetings. Accessible anywhere there's a Wi-Fi connection, these tools allow us to constantly share information online, as opposed to resorting to sending documents back and forth via email. You can even set up these programs so others are permitted to only view the documents, or you can provide permission to certain individuals to access, edit, and add files at any time. One program my company uses quite often is SmartSheet. This spreadsheet-like software can help your team track and manage multiple projects, sales pipelines, customer information, event schedules, task lists, and more. Your company can purchase the program for the entire enterprise, or you can pay $10 to $15 per team member per month – a small price to pay for efficiency.

If you need to stay on top of who's doing what while monitoring when each task has been completed, you might want to try StandupTime from Succinct Software LLC. It requires a monthly subscription of $19 to $119, which allows team members to post, update, and collaborate through their daily status reports. You can quickly see what's been done and what still remains on the group's to-do list.

ExhibitForce.com also offers online tools for event, asset, and project management. The company's Project Edition helps streamline workflow processes and project management and includes helpful features such as freight tracking, estimating tools, digital product catalogs, finance reporting, return-on-investment calculators, etc. Prices for a single license start just shy of $1,500 for activation, and then you pay a monthly fee of $80 per license.

To help stay in contact with your team, all you really need is a good app for your smartphones. Something as simple as GroupMe or WhatsApp, which are both free, allow team members to send the entire group text or voice messages, photos, and videos.

Clearly, project management is rarely easy, and given the varied and sometimes challenging personalities and communication styles of each team member, it can be downright difficult. But with the aforementioned strategies and online tools, the process can be far more organized, effective, and enjoyable.