Importance of Communication

Rita Mulcahy, PMP says that ‘90% of projects fail due to poor communication.’How true it is! The project environment is now a virtual global village where the client is in Australia, the contractor is in Germany and the consultant is in India.

Loopholes and barriers

 

The sender can only apply ‘Best practices‘ to have his message across but can’t be hold responsible for being completely understood by the recipient. I am saying this because of the perceptual issues pertaining within the ideologies of sender and receivers. I feel-the communication model (see graphic above) gets defeated right at the moment when the sender forgets to take the feedback from the receiver. Indian corporate environment is suffering majorly because the senior management does not have transparent info sharing with the executives and they hardly take any feedback. Employee satisfaction survey is a pretty yearly HR task only. Efforts are made to have a wafer thin middle level management resulting in full exposure of executives’ activities to the senior management. It is important to understand the relevance of having middle level management in corporate sector. Any employee can be made self motivated if he has someone in the management whom he can trust. Trust builds by sharing. It is very important to have a mentor in your professional life- whom you look up to. Mentor can generate the feeling of ‘belongingness’ in the employee. Lack of communication is the major factor in terms of high level of attrition rate in IT sector significantly. The moment the top level management fails to connect – the middle level and lower level loses its faith. It is human nature and not a scientific theory that will require any kind of hypothesis or assumptions. An employee will definitely leave the current job opportunity and move ahead in search of challenging work environment, self actualization need satiation or the clichéd raking of moolah.

If I have these - I am happy!!!

 

Communication with the subordinates is entirely based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The manager who has understood the pyramids of it is the one who will command charismatic leadership qualities within his subordinates. Leadership comes by personality- this is what I believe in. Even if the leadership is bestowed upon someone by age/lineage/genealogy/line in organization- it is entirely the matter of your personality that makes you a LEADER. Prince Charles will never be accepted by public of Britain as the heir to the throne as he is not having that personality which will win the hearts of Britons. A dictator will be a leader but will always remain a bad influence throughout in our minds. Ravana was great learned scholar but still all we remember about him is his misdeeds.

I was working in an organization wherein we had monthly review meetings or One on One. The manager chose to close the eyes to every feedback given by us. It was quite widespread negativism in the organization and the management chose to follow Gandhi’s principle- only difference being it chose everything not jus evil!

It is very important to give credits when they are due- there’s nothing in this world as a compliment or recognition of your work. Imagine how great a CEO will feel if a new graduate trainee compliments him on his leadership style. That CEO has by far attained all the needs of the pyramid and then a compliment from a young blood B-School educated trainee infuses energy and self belief in his traditional thinking. And how wonderful it is vice versa- a CEO applauding his new graduate trainee for his new innovative ideas and telling him- he sees bright future for him. What more does the CEO/trainee require? It’s all the magic of COMMUNICATION.

Jigsaw pieces of communication

 

Coming back to PM Guru Rita Mulcahy’s quote- you must be pondering why communication fails? I am not using fancy terms here to explain why communication fails. Communication fails primarily because of the following factors:

• a) Message was not in a medium the receiver could understand (I spoke in fluent English with Arab customer)
• b) We didn’t take feedback (Did my contractor received the contract agreement- let me assume he did and he will come back fighting after two months he didn’t -Oops MY BAD!!!)
• c) Perception issues – selective retention, halo effect, gender bias (Asians are not great at management- hell I am going to pass this project to someone else)
• d) Environmental barriers like -physical domains, disturbances, volume, noise, distractions etc. (Sorry the line is breaking-hello……….can you please be louder-there’s a train passing behind)

So as I said in my previous topic ‘Project Management for dummies’ I say here yet again the power is in

DISCUSS DISCUSS AND DISCUSS! SHARE SHARE AND SHARE!!!

Be back with some more interesting concepts.

Project Management for Dummies

What does ‘project’ imply to you? Is it something you feel you’re associated with starting from Monday morning blues to chilled Friday evenings? Projects are integral part of our lives. And here I am not talking about all working professionals. Getting admission in nursery class is a project; moving from primary school to high school is a project; graduating is a project; organizing party is a project; going on a shopping spree is a project

Project Management is an integral element in being a successful professional. I have been part of various projects wherein no scope was defined, no planning was done and communication flow was abysmal. All projects have three naughty students – COST, TIME & SCOPE and one strict teacher – QUALITY. I called the students are naughty because any slight change in their behavior hampers their curriculum- the PROJECT. I called the QUALITY as teacher as it keeps governing the naughty students to see if they’re doing their work in right manner and in the stipulated guideline frame.

THREE NAUGHTY STUDENTS & ONE STRICT TEACHER

 

 

The PMBOK(Project Management Book of Knowledge) defines project management with sectional segments:

1. Project Scope Management (exactly what we need to do and MOST important what we do not need to do)
2. Project Time Management (scheduling, identifying critical path activities, making baseline schedule for identifying variances and trends )
3. Project Cost Management (budgeting, cost baseline, finding variances and trends, reserves and contingencies)
4. Project Quality Management (Project does what it actually intended to do and only what it intended)
5. Project Human Resource Management (managing the drivers of the project)
6. Project Communications Management (bad communication is No.1 problem-DISCUSS DISCUSS DISCUSS-SHARE SHARE SHARE!!!)
7. Project Risk Management (fighting the known unknowns and unknown unknowns that we may meet in our journey)
8. Project Procurement Management (making friends with contractors, suppliers, subcontractors, types of contracts, terms and conditions)
9. Professional and Social Responsibility (supporting the integrity and ethical code of conduct while achieving our pursuits of success)
10. Project Integration Management (Remember it takes -ALL to TANGO….see to it the project doesn’t becomes a jigsaw puzzle)

I have my own school of thoughts regarding Project Management (referred as PM henceforth). I feel any kind of project-short, long, international, fixed term – can be made a success by hard core concentration on two elements – PLANNING AND CONTROLLING. Rest of the elements are part of these two only.

If I were to define Planning I’d say in simple terms as – ‘where we are and where we want to go?’

Where we are -> Where we want to go?

Planning involves defining where we stand and where we need to go, what course of path should we follow, what obstacles we need to tackle, what assumptions we need to make, what constraints we will face, who will be with us, who will do what, who will get what, what will be shared, when will we do it, how will we do it.

Planning involves heavy self and stake holder’s questioning, the harder you question- the better results you’ll reap. It is pertinent to involve as many inputs as you can.

DISCUSS DISCUSS AND DISCUSS! SHARE SHARE AND SHARE!

Anybody’s input can be crucial to the project and sharing with all will garner response and will lead to brainstorming- just what MEETINGS are all about.

Planning should not try; rather should aim at achieving making plans for our fellow team members and have a slightly higher level of knowledge then those around us. Project Manager is after all the first point of contact for any query. The project manager should visualize the entire flow of what needs to be done. The mind should run a motion picture in his mind showing exactly what is done, who is doing it, where its been done, how its been done and when its been done.

Sharing information is the LIFELINE of the project. Keep everybody informed-but see to it that no unnecessary triggers are alarmed off especially to those who are not concerned. Don’t confuse people- just communicate with them. Take feedback – Act on feedback – Gain trust.

Clear your terms and conditions before you commit any work. Written communication is THE word. Word of mouth promises are for lovers not for managers!

Be smart freak not control freak- see to it that the events conform to the plan. If your planning was effective make sure to check the dough rising by monitoring the workflow. See what ever you’d seen in your motion picture and you’d drafted in your script-is it happening in reality? Are the baselines far from reality? Are the planned resources enough? Are the objectives been met? Are we missing milestones? Are we delivering on time? Are we all aware? The failure to answer this is not a MESSY situation. It calls for PLANNING. Plan again-where you went wrong, what was left, do we need workaround planning, assess risks.

The best and the simplest management tool was popularized by Dr. W. Edwards Deming in form of a PDCA cycle. PDCA cycle was originally created by Walter A. Shewhart. The tool is the most valid tool that stands in the plethora of fancy modern quality tools and its simplicity is something that makes it so relevant. It stands in all worlds- corporate, profit making, social, non profit making, personal- just any.

PDCA Cycle

 

Project Management gives a deep insightful probe into what goes into the SUCCESS/FAILURE of any project.

I will be writing more on the individual topics.