Effective Project Communication Starts with Good Listening

"We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking."

When we mention project communication we primarily focus on the “supply” side of the communication chain. The “demand” side, i.e. listening, is often given little to no attention, whilst the most direct way to improve communication is by learning to listen more effectively.

As a listener, we apply several filters when receiving a message, such as our own judgement and beliefs, and pay attention to the level that matters to us. This often leads to just ‘hearing the word’ without ‘listening to the message’, which can often lead to ‘crossed wires’ where the speaker and the listener are on different wavelengths.

Rather than providing a laundry list of recycled tips and hints on how to improve our listening skills, let’s focus on just three common barriers to effective listening and explore the strategies that can help overcome them.

#1 Knowing the answer
This occurs when you think you know what the speaker wants to say before they actually finish saying it. For those impatient listeners, it might lead to cutting off the speaker or trying to complete the sentence for them, and even worse, interrupting by saying that you disagree without letting the other person express what it is you think you disagree with. This behaviour often leads to disagreements, tension and unhealthy conflict, whilst the message is completely lost.

Strategy: Keep an open mind, look for something new and/or interesting in what the speaker is saying. Wait three seconds after the other person has finished talking, take a deep breath and only then respond.

#2 Red flag words
These are words that so called ‘press our hot buttons’. The speaker may be unaware of their potential impact and use them unintentionally. They trigger a negative association, engage negative emotions, and divert our attention away from the remainder of the message. 

Strategy: When you hear a red flag word, stop the conversation and ask the speaker to repeat what they’ve said, and if required, to clarify what they meant by saying it. You can then either discuss those points further or agree to come back to them later and focus on the rest of the conversation.

#3 Seeing the trees without seeing the forest
Some people focus so much on the detail that they completely miss the overall context of the communication i.e. how all those single ‘trees’ fit together. Focussing only on the details is not effective communication. Neither is focusing just on the ‘forest’, as the specific points might be missed or vaguely presented, and the listener ends up filling in the gaps with their own interpretation of what the detail should be. This can lead to misinterpretation of the message and poor decision-making.

Strategy: A good listener will seek to understand the big picture as well as the key details. When communicating with ‘trees’ people, ask them to explain how each point fits into the broader context, strategy or plan. On the other hand, ask the ‘forest’ people to provide concrete examples to ensure they can support their high level view.

And a final word of wisdom … As an old Zen proverb says, "When walking, walk. When eating, eat." When it comes to communication, forget multitasking and give your full attention to either listening or talking. Be there one hundred per cent, with your whole body and mind.

References sourced from an essay by Michael Webb www.sklatch.net/thoughtlets/listen.html

Beyond Projex can help you and your team improve listening and other communication skills. We specialize in project management, change management, and project communications.

Contact us at info@beyondprojex.com.au  or check out our website www.beyondprojex.com.au to find out how you can benefit.

Become a Project Communication Rockstar With These 7 Tips

We hear all the time that communication is one of the most important soft skills that a project manager should possess. There are dozens of case studies where poor communication was a major contributor to a project failure. So, how do we get it right?

1. Communicate often! There is no such thing as over-communication

2. Clarify and seek clarification. Assuming that everyone is on the same page and so there is no need to communicate is the WORST mistake you can make!

3. Consider your audience. Are they young, old, relaxed or more formal? Particularly when it comes to informal types of conversation (e.g. texting or social medial), consider what level of formal language the other party uses. Would they find acronyms and abbreviations irritating or an efficient way to convey a message?

4. What medium? Each form of communication has its use and place. Formal project documentation or status report or steering committee presentation would require a more formal language and structure, whilst quick updates to project team or immediate stakeholders can be kept at a less dense tone and could be delivered in an email.

5. Use conversation to discuss complex or controversial issues and NEVER try to resolve conflict through an email, text message/SMS, tweet or other forms of non-personal medium. A conversation is the ONLY way to discuss and resolve disagreements or varying points of views. A face-to-face communication is best in those situations, use the phone or video-conferencing for remote teams and do it carefully, with a plan.

6. Beware what’s been written is there forever! Anything you write represents you to others. Think twice before sending off an ‘emotionally loaded’ email, particularly one that contains harsh or even offensive language. A good technique is to write down your thoughts (even if they are full of anger and **** words) and then delete the note. Quick tip! Don’t put an email address in the To: field! Just in case you press a wrong button ….

7. State your point early and stick to it! Stay focussed on the message you are trying to get across. Time is money and people’s attention span is very short nowadays. Avoid unnecessary statements, lengthy explanations and getting off the track. Don’t lose sight of the point. The essence of effective communication lies in conveying your intended message, so make sure you haven’t become so bogged down in your mode of communication that you forget why you are doing it!
Beyond Projex can develop and help you execute an effective communication strategy for your projects, ensuring the right people receive the right information at the right time and in the right format. We specialize in project management systems and tools, change management, and also provide high quality contract project management resources that are accredited through the Project Management Institute. 

 

Contact us at info@beyondprojex.com.au or check out our website www.beyondprojex.com.au to find out how you can benefit.

Lots of books and articles have been written about 7 Best of This and 12 Top Tips for That... To be honest these titles do not excite me anymore as there are so many of them and they seem to be recycling the same things just in a different format or context. So, I wasn't that keen on a book that had been handed to me by a fellow project manager, "The 77 Sins of Project Management". After about 2 years on the shelf, the book has finally made it to my hands... and oh, boy! It's amazing! Everything in this book is so true!

I'd like to share this one lesson with you: Managing stakeholders is like working with horses...
I've shared this with some friends/colleagues and the most common response I get is "oh, that means you need to round them up, gather them in one spot"... Well, kind of... there is more though

The analogy is related to the pain that one feels when kicked by a horse. Approach a horse from behind, stand at a distance and feel that hoof reach you... Ouch! This is what happens when you avoid getting too close, a kick from a horse hurts most at the 'end' of its kick, when it's leg is farthest from its body and moving fast. On the other hand, if you stay close, even if you do get kicked, it hurst a whole lot less.

The same applies to stakeholders and issues associated with especially those challenging ones. Keep your distance from them, or worse, ignore them, and you'll soon feel the pain - that mighty kick is coming and once the leg is fully extended it's hard to stop it or reduce its power. So, stay close to the stakeholders and close to the issues - they won't go away by themselves! - you have a chance to anticipate, mitigate and manage them within your control.

And, as a friend of mine added, if all fails pull out a whip... I'm not encouraging animal (or stakeholder!) cruelty here, by no means! However, there is something about the sound of a whip and horses behaving .... works on the stakehoders too :)

Funny enough, I had pictures of horses with faces of those challenging stakeholders from my previous projects flashing in front of my eyes as I was reading the book, and now again when writing this blog... I'm sure you can relate to it too!

Why I love basketball…

The best thing I have done in recent weeks was to start going to basketball games with my son. Almost every Sat night we grab a bag of popcorn and join other fans to cheer for our local premiership team.

Apart from being fun and exciting to watch (and play!), I love basketball because there is so much we project managers can learn from it! I can’t help myself and watching the games I continually look for similarities with the project management world. And, there are so many! Here are just a few:

• Scope - it couldn’t be clearer, all passes must be well planned and agreed, avoiding useless passes that do not add any value, i.e. do not lead to earning at least two points or preventing the other team from doing so
• Time – there are only 40min in the game, event your Sponsor can't grand an extension, so need to plan and execute all the smart moves within this boundary
• Quality - oh, the spectators, including my 5 year old son, are very quick to let you know when you’re failing on this one!
• Risk - every move the players and the coach make is about managing risks
• Human resources - particularly teamwork and R & R’s, unless the team has a strong agreement and execution of the agreed roles, they are doomed for failure
• Communication - with most rounds taking less than a minute, how the team communicates can make or break it; use of codes, sign language and "short-hand" to communicate “secret” strategies requires a lot of planning and practice, something we often undermine in the project world when it comes to communication
• Integration - executing each of the strategies on the court is all about integration; regardless how good a move an individual player makes it’s pointless, or sometimes even impossible, unless it’s built into a broader picture; one such brilliant chain of moves that led to a spectacular finish was when the middle player unexpectedly (or so to an unaware observer) made a long pass towards what looked like an empty space, only to have the ball caught by another player who appeared from nowhere, caught the ball mid-air and immediately placed it in the hoop! It was an incredible display of not only skill but also communication, teamwork, timing, and the good old integration.

If you are in project management, you will most likely notice that I’ve left 2 components out: cost and procurement. This was intentional and I’d like to encourage you to post a comment with your suggestions on how these two aspects of project management present themselves in a basketball game (trying to stay from the obvious like buying equipment and managing the budget – be creative!)

One of my previous blogs was about useless discussions… that post was also inspired by a basketball game and again it’s so relevant to project management. Read it here

Happy Bouncing!

So much to do ... so little time!

Sounds familiar? Oh, yes! There are only 24hrs in a day and noone can change it. Most of us would like to do heaps every day but when you look at it you can only do so much. Say you do a To Do list and it has 20 items ... what are the chances that you get ALL 20 completed in a day? Slim.... very slim.. close to impossible...Why? Don't know what your life and work is but mine has been dominated by constantly being distructed to complete the stuff on my To Do List.. so after checking the email in the morning, attending meetings virtually back-to-back all day I start on my To Do List around 5pm... how much of it do you think I can complete? 20 items .. and if you allocate 15min per item on average, that's 300min = 5 hours....which means staying in the office till 10pm!

This is why I keep saying we all need to take a good hard look at what we are doing to make sure we really are investing our time wisely, spending it on value add activities and have a perspective on life ... there are so many people that are worse off than us even if that means failing to launch to project on the expected day.

So, keep everything in perspective. If your job involves saving lives, this is your priority! Your life and the life you are saving are your priorities! Not the timeline or budget but what's actually important in a given situation.

And, don't forget YOU are important and YOU need to take care of yourself!

Come on! Go out there! Enjoy life!

Why are we wasting time on pointless discussions/arguments?

I always wonder this when watching a sports game, and basketball is my favourite at the moment. You see both the players and the coaches arguing with referees... I can't stop thinking: what's the point? I have never seen a positive outcome of these arguments and I just don't understand why they're wasting everyone's time and disrupting the game, not to mention the lack of respect those arguments are showing for the referees. This article sheds some light on why those arguments happen so often (entertainment, adrenaline, players following the coaches etc.)

Interestingly, we often engage in similar fruitless, time-wasting discussions not only in our personal but also our professional life, including project management. Think about all those "challenging" stakeholders you have had on your projects and the number of times you've been involved in pro-longed debates, often heated, that were just pointless.

So, next time such situation arises, think about that basketball game. Is it worth my/my teams' time and effort or shall I just take a deep breath and look for alternative ways to resolve the situation. This is what I have been doing for a while now and it seems to work. We gain some perspective on things when we take time out (this time a useful strategy sourced from a basketball game!), and allow ourselves to re-think what's best for the project and plan our next conversation with that in mind.

Going to see another basketball game with my son next weekend so will look out for some more similarities with the project world. Stay tuned!

Project Plan or Shopping List?

Project plans too often resemble shopping lists, detailing every single activity that is to be performed. We then find that it takes hours of our valuable time to just keep the plans up to date, not to mention that we focus more on completing individual tasks rather than managing the various components of the project to deliver the end result.

“Shopping Lists” or “To Do Lists” add no value to project management, so abandon them! Develop a project plan that is outcomes focused. Each activity should result in a tangible outcome that contributes to achieving the overall project objective and realising the benefits. Contact us to learn more about outcomes based planning.