Communication on Small Projects

In the July 2007 edition of PM Network magazine, the cover story is entitled "Small Projects, Big Results". What a great edition of this magazine, especially the Point/Counter-Point Article featuring yours truly. :-) Anyway, back to the small projects piece. It speaks to the importance of doing sufficient planning even on small projects. I personally use a 4 tier category framework in which I apply various levels of rigor, which I wrote about here.

My only point of contention is regarding communication. Communication management seems to be taken as an implicit assumption by both Olivares and Toledo in their described approaches. Personally, I made a breakthrough on my small projects when I stopped taking communications for granted. That happened after I listened to The PM Podcast Episode 64 with Margaret Meloni as the interview guest. (That is an awesome episode, I recommend it highly) Since then, I have included a short communications plan in my small project plan template. It is a short, simple table that has fields for ‘communication activity’, ‘timing/frequency’, ‘responsible’, and ‘stakeholders’. It normally has 2 lines on it, one for a weekly status report, and a project closure report distribution where ‘timing/frequency’ = upon project completion.

Basically what this does for me is provide a reminder to communicate proactively and hold myself accountable for it. Since I’ve been doing this the major benefits have been less rework and making stakeholders more at ease. They know when to expect regular communications from me, so they feel more in the loop and I’ve found they reciprocate by communicating better with me regarding scope and limitations in the project.

There were several references in the article to regularly scheduled meetings taking 1-3 hours in length, sometimes on multiple days during the week. I disagree with this approach to communications on small projects. From my personal experience, this approach tends to yield a waste of time, fruitless pontification, and inattentive participants especially over a conference call. I have an alternative suggestion.

I have started using SCRUM at work along with my team, and I think the communications guidelines in the SCRUM methodology match my personal preferences for small projects. During the project, you have daily meetings limited to 15 minutes or less, and each team member talks in turn about 3 things:

1. Things I've done since yesterday's meeting
2. Things I'm going to get done today
3. Obstacles in my way

Now, this technique in SCRUM is geared towards communication between developers on the project team. I want to suggest an adaptation for stakeholder communications on small projects.

First, meetings might be weekly or bi-weekly instead of daily. Instead of everyone providing the 3 points of information, the project manager uses these 3 points as a framework for the discussion. I suggest keeping the meeting to the 15 minute limit. Here's the new set of points:

1. Progress since the last status meeting
2. Plans from now until the next status meeting
3. Status of risks and issues, and is there anything new?

Here is the catch. Don't try to solve problems in the status meeting. This meeting is only for the 3 things above. Speak in terms of identification and status only. To actually address risks and issues, have a separate discussion with only those people who can contribute.

Of course, most of this can be applied to larger projects too. Communication should be like a laser; focused, efficient, and consisting of only necessary wavelengths (people and content). Instead, it usually turns out to be more like a floodlight; scattered, wasteful (of time), and involving many unnecessary parties.

The moral: Value communication on small projects. Make it explicit, planned, focused, and the best use of people's time.

Young Versus Veteran Communication Styles

The feature story in the March 2007 edition of PM Network, titled "Bridging the Gap", is a look at some of the differences in style and communication that newer professionals and project managers have compared to veterans. I enjoyed the article and found some points to agree with and some in conflict with my personal experiences.

In the article there is a quote from Dave Davis, PMP, asserting that "the younger generation doesn't grasp the value of face time and the importance of building a team identity...They avoid social time and group meetings and end up identifying more with the tasks than the team."

Ouch. I can see how he might be right though. It wasn't long after I entered the professional world that I realized how important relationships are to getting things done, mostly because I had a mentor who cared enough to kick me in the teeth when I needed it:

If you are within walking distance, get off your butt and go talk to them. If that's not feasible, pick up the phone and call them. Email should only be used for following up, giving technical details, or links and attached files.

That made a lot of sense to me. I've tried to live this, although I will admit that sometimes I catch myself after having sent an email, saying "why didn't I just pick up the phone and call?" I've seen this with colleagues too, and I'll admit that it seems the younger people tend to almost seem afraid to pick up the phone and call, or walk over and talk something out. There have been a few times recently where people have come over to my desk and asked what to do with something that came through email. When I look at it I can predict with fair accuracy that it's an email chain at least 3-4 responses long, and no one understands each other. At that point I usually say, "It looks like this email is done. Give them a call." On the email chain question, personally I have a rule that if it's more than 2 replies and still needs clarification, it's time to walk over or pick up the phone.

New communication channels have come about since that sage advice mentioned earlier. Now there are chat, video conferencing, and screen sharing/online collaboration tools to manage. Chat is definitely an area were younger professionals get benefit if it's used properly, and older people do not. Most people 30 and under grew up with computers and lots of typing, and we can communicate via chat without much effort. Video conferencing doesn't seem to be too widely used yet, and if so it's usually for more formal meetings and not daily/weekly ones. Screen sharing and online collaboration tools are wonderful, especially if you are on the phone too. It can be a great way to present a tool, train, or collaborate on building project plans.

I personally see the opposite trend when it comes to following up on verbal communications with a written summary and/or action plan. I find the more experienced people seem to have a meeting and not send out meeting minutes, action items, etc. Younger and more inexperienced people like myself I would probably give a 50% hit rate on following up properly on meetings. It may be because when I send out status reports or meeting summaries, I use a set of form templates I created myself, and they are not company standard. There are no company templates for status reports or meeting summaries (that I know of). I think younger people are a little more willing to 'rock the boat' like that and create their own processes based on the conditions at hand.

In summary, I believe everyone has something to learn and improvements to make, myself included. So if you're a new professional, go find a geriatric mentor and really listen to what they have to say. Veterans with the scars of battle, go find a young whipper-snapper and show them the ropes, but listen and learn from them too.

The Importance of Honest Communication

I'm catching up on project management related items after my hiatus with the newest member of our family, my son Draven. Cutting's Edge is a blog I started reading recently that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. In Thomas' post for February 20th, Avoiding Trouble With Honesty, he listed five warning lights to keep you honest. I really liked them:

1. If you have to determine how to spin the information, you are on thin ice.
2. When that little voice inside your head says something doesn’t smell right you should listen to it.
3. Any time you say, “I think they’ll buy that” you probably shouldn’t be trying to sell it.
4. If you are trying to pick someone to blame you are heading for trouble.
5. When you say, “I hope management doesn’t find out” you should be the one telling them.

I would add that another important factor in honesty is transparency. I respect and appreciate project managers who allow their stakeholders to be involved through accessible plans and progress reporting. Team members and stakeholders should know enough about and be able to pull up their parts of the project on a whim and see how they are doing.

Communication Failure and PM HR

I had a great HR Project Management class tonight. We had a guest speaker from a local organization come in and tell us a little about what she does as a new project manager and some of the challenges she deals with on a daily basis. She reinforced what I've experienced and been told a thousand times: Project Management is 90% communication!

As a timely matter of fate, one of my favorite subscriptions was updated today with a post titled "Silence — One of the Two Great Wastes™ — Is a Project and Career Killer" over at Reforming Project Management. It ties very well with what we spoke about tonight and some of the overall themes of this course I am taking now.

The article cites a few sources that conclude:

"...that project deterioration was a function of not listening and not speaking. We named those behaviors the Two Great Wastes."

I love the term quoted in the post, "organizational silence" to describe when communication just doesn't happen. I addition to the points made in these sources, I'd like to add some of the items we brainstormed about thus far this term regarding reasons why communication fails and therefore creating a high probability that the project will also fail.

"This is my show, punk!"
That person who just waits for someone to voice a concern or idea so they can shoot them down. The Theory X manager "who's always right." Gee, I really feel like putting myself out there and contributing in this environment.

"Silence is golden."
The project manager who assumes that because no one says anything, they are all in agreement and understand. In truth, they are (a) confused but too embarrassed to admit they don't understand, (b) afraid to speak up for some reason, (c) don't care enough to put forth the effort, or (d) inhibited by one of a thousand other reasons. Correction; "Silence is failure."

"Look at me! Look at me!"
These are the people who do a little too much contributing. They monopolize the conversation, use ambiguous language, and do not listen to what other people have to say. They view the world from all 3 viewpoints: me, myself, and I. They might not even have a good understanding of what they are talking about. Get out your bullsh%t bingo cards.

"What was your name again?"
From what I've seen of small to large projects, there's simply no reason to not have a status update meeting at least bi-weekly with your project team. Whether or not you've got a major milestone to report on, regular meetings keep the communication channels open and keep the project progress transparent. You can review the major project risks, review upcoming tasks, and publicly applaud team members who have done something exceptional recently.
Change is happening all the time on your project, so use regular meetings as a way to acknowledge and deal with it. An experienced project manager once gave me some advice, "The only things guaranteed in life are death, taxes, and that once you baseline your project plan, someone or something will come along and screw with it."

Of course there are tons of other reasons why communications fail on projects. What are some of your favorites? Let me know.