October 13, 2008 – Back to the Basic: Communication – When

Rarely do you hear a project sponsor say, “There is way too much communication going on here.” Unfortunately a common complaint is the lack of communication. True, the loudest complainers are often those that opted out of the weekly status meetings and never responded to your emails. You are left wondering when it is appropriate to connect with them.

When to Speak Up. This weekend I was listening to The Tech Guy on a local radio show. Google is piloting a new gmail feature that checks your sobriety before letting you hit the send button. You have a minute to answer math questions correctly to proceed. Evidently too many drunks were waking up in the morning with a hangover AND some explaining to do. For the record, late night may not be the best time to send an email. Sleep impaired judgment can make the worst email look like Shakespeare.

Status. Many factors go into how often you need to get the word out on your project’s progress. The list includes:

• Project length – Quick hit projects may be over within a week so weekly meetings are useless. For projects in excess of a year, weekly status meetings are too frequent during slower development phases.
• Development type – Agile project development requires daily, fifteen minute, standing meetings. More traditional projects don’t.
• Location of resources – Co-located teams communicate hourly. World-wide teams require more structure behind their interaction.
  

End Users. It has been my experience that the biggest potential failure in communication is with end users. We engage them to get requirements, flash some screens by them for User Acceptance Testing, and finish by dumping the product on them unannounced. Instead of being the central focus they are nearly an afterthought.

Use touch points throughout the project to build to the product release finale. Electronic Arts and other entertainment related industries go all out. When EA Sports released “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” the world knew months in advance and they gave it a media show kicked off. Major motion pictures splash billboards, previews and internet sites long before opening night.

Instead of the implementation date being just the point you are pushing your team toward, start a count down for the intended recipients. “NEWS BULLETIN: Only 47 Days until Dallas goes Digital!” Tease them with the features they will get.

Road construction has the main route to our house torn up. A typical construction sign reads, “Reduced lanes from September 15 to November 10. Use alternate routes.” That says “Your life will be painful for then next 2 months.” Instead they should say, “On November 10 your pothole problems will be gone.” Or “Coming soon: An extra turning lane to get you home faster.”

No Surprises. Ever the optimists, project managers tend to hold out on reporting bad news in the hopes they can right the boat before it sinks. If you foresee problems, raise them as risks as soon as possible. Be proactive in avoiding and mitigating them before they become issues.

Rarely does an issue spring out of nowhere to crush a project. By not warning management ahead of time you eliminate any leadership they may be able to give (additional funds, better people or different priorities) and make them look bad at the same time. Not a good combination. Managers tend to remember such things. With advanced warning the Titanic might be retired to the docks in Long Beach, CA instead of the Queen Mary.

September 29, 2008 – Back to the Basic: Communication - What

While waiting in line at Costco to buy my $1.50 hot dog and soda, I watched the manager collect money from the tills and seal it in plastic, oblong containers. He walked over to the wall and stuck them in a pneumatic tube. With a muted *phoomp* they shot up and out of sight.

Long before email, the quickest form of interoffice communication was the dial switch message tube. Plastic cylinders were sucked from one end of the building to a central switch board. From there they were placed in another tube and pushed to their destination. Instead of having a megabyte size limit for attachments there was a weight limit.

Given the length of time that people have been communicating, the topic of communication is obviously huge. Methods have evolved from papyrus to paper and are headed to paperless…which just seems to create more paper. Communication is concerned with the entire package: what to communicate, when to say it and how to deliver it.

What to Communicate. Simply put, as a project manager you need to communicate answers, accolades, applause, bad news, budgets, briefs, causes, critiques, costs, delays, dangers, decisions, earned value…and I’m only up to the Es!!! An estimated 80% of a manager’s job is communication.

So how do you know what to communicate? That depends on who needs to know.

Delivery Team. To the team you need to articulate the vision and direction of the project. Begin with the defining documents (Charter, Scoping Document, SOW, etc.) to lay out the vision of the project. Use the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to drive discussion of what needs to be accomplished and how to get there. Set delivery expectations by laying out a schedule with assigned resources, specified effort, and agreed upon dates.

Since communication is a bi-directional exchange, require feedback. Collect status, effort, re-estimates, criticism and suggestions. Don’t accept excuses, complaints and whining without moving them beyond to solutions.

Sponsor / Management. Contrary to popular belief, management does not always want a rosy picture painted for them. They need the truth told succinctly so they can make informed decisions. They also need bad news delivered as soon as possible so they can take action.

On the other hand, management, if left to their own devices, will make assumptions that may not be true. Understand their expectations and work to align them with reality. Based on the scope definition of one project I was on, we successfully upgraded a software package. The directive for Phase 1 was “out of the box” and we and held the modifications to a minimum. At the end, the sponsor was disappointed she didn’t get the new reports she wanted. I had failed to keep her expectations focused on the scope.

Governance / Auditors. The job of the Governance (Program or Project Management Office) and Auditor groups is to ensure that the safeguards are in place to make the project a success. They want to know that you understand the processes are following them. If your project doesn’t fit the mold, meet with them up front and carve out a new mold that everyone can live with. Communicate lessons learned and process improvements to make projects work more effectively.

End Users. Usually End Users are ignored until the product is virtually complete and then they are brought in to ooh and ah over what we created for them. Your job is to understand their expectations from the inception of the product, align those expectations with the development, confirm them in the User Acceptance Testing and deliver successfully. Communication is the key through each of these steps.

Others. There are always others. Some of them can kill even the most successful project. While speaking with my PMO counterpart on a mass transit project, I asked who was handling the communications to the ultimate end users: the people taking the trains and buses. The project was to implement smartcard technology into the public transportation system. If they were unprepared to use the system, it would be a failure. Who will be impacted by your project and how should you be communicating the changes to them?

The ultimate purpose of communication is to eliminate surprises. Do that and you will be communicating the “what.”