Communication Constraints

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:05 We don't live in a perfect world with perfect people.
• 00:08 Sometimes there will be constraints that limit a team's communication options.
• 00:13 The team leader must recognize and overcome these constraints.
• 00:18 >> There are constraints that are functions of team size and organization.
• 00:22 First, size matters.
• 00:24 The number of possible communication channels between team members grows with
• 00:28 the size of the team.
• 00:30 But if there are only 2 team members, there's only 1 communication path.
• 00:34 If there are 3 team members,
• 00:36 the number of possible communication paths is now increased to 3.
• 00:40 With 14 members, the number goes up to 6.
• 00:43 With 5 team members, there are now 10 possible communication paths or channels.
• 00:48 If the team size doubles from 5 to 10 the number
• 00:51 of possible communication paths increases from 10 to 45.
• 00:55 With a team this size the team leader cannot rely on ad hoc or
• 00:59 word of mouth communication.
• 01:01 The leader must be proactively managing the team communication to avoid confusion.
• 01:07 Another factor that could constrain communication is if
• 01:10 the work is being done under contract for a customer or another organization.
• 01:15 In this case there will be required contract communications both in terms of
• 01:19 content and timing.
• 01:20 And the communication approach may also be specified as to who is allowed to
• 01:24 communicate and who is not allowed to communicate.
• 01:27 All these become constraints on how communication happens on that project.
• 01:32 Finally, there are several other factors that have created communication
• 01:36 challenges based upon my experience.
• 01:38 Extensive use of vendors or contractors may inhibit communication because they may
• 01:43 not have access to the same systems or had the same applications available to them.
• 01:48 Another is security, when the subject matter of the team activities
• 01:51 is classified or contains personal and confidential information there will
• 01:56 be heightened security restrictions on communication.
• 01:59 This creates limitations on access to systems and what information is shared.
• 02:05 And finally, when the team is virtual, and that's frequently the case these days,
• 02:09 a number of communication options may not be available to the team.
• 02:13 Due to the virtual team members not having the same application or
• 02:16 having bandwidth issues.
• 02:19 Next, I would like to comment for a moment on communication methodology.
• 02:23 In today's business environment technology is becoming a dominant factor.
• 02:27 Well, I like technology, it's a big help to communication within the project team.
• 02:32 We need to also be aware of the limitations of different types of
• 02:35 communication technologies.
• 02:37 The technology can either enable or
• 02:39 inhibit some of our communication methodologies.
• 02:44 One communication methodology is the old fashioned face to face project meeting.
• 02:48 This approach has the opportunity for the richest communication,
• 02:52 as you have verbal cues, visual cues, body language.
• 02:55 And you can directly interact, asking questions and getting answers.
• 02:59 But scheduling this can be a real pain to get everyone in the room at the same time.
• 03:05 Next is the informal face to face meetings.
• 03:07 This is a great opportunity to directly communicate and
• 03:11 ensure that your communication is effective through dialogue and discussion.
• 03:15 But these are hard to plan and arrange.
• 03:18 You have to meet each other in the hallway or at the coffee pot at the same time.
• 03:23 The third level is the personal phone call.
• 03:26 Again, it's focused but now you only have verbal cues, no visual cues.
• 03:30 So you miss the eye roll or the confused look on their face.
• 03:34 And like the informal face to face,
• 03:36 it's hard to predict whether they're at their phone and will actually pick it up.
• 03:40 So connection is uncertain.
• 03:43 Another approach is to leave a voicemail.
• 03:45 This avoids the unpredictable connection element of a phone call.
• 03:48 You can communicate at any time.
• 03:50 But the difficulty starts to show up based on when they actually pick up
• 03:54 the voicemails and get your message.
• 03:56 In addition voicemails usually have to stay very short and
• 03:59 of course you get no immediate feedback.
• 04:02 The common option is the conference call where three or
• 04:06 more people are on the line at the same time.
• 04:08 This gets the message out to a broad audience and
• 04:10 you can provide a consistent message to all.
• 04:13 But there is the problem of whether anyone is actually listening or
• 04:16 are they just logged in on the call?
• 04:19 If the call has a large number of people, there's often no feedback.
• 04:22 So you don't know if they actually understood the message.
• 04:26 Web meetings have become a dominant form of communication with project teams.
• 04:30 I'm often on half a dozen of these meetings in a day.
• 04:33 They are almost as good as a face to face meeting without nearly as much difficulty
• 04:37 of getting things scheduled.
• 04:39 The downside is that some people struggle with the technology or
• 04:43 they have bandwidth problems.
• 04:45 Although that problem is not nearly as bad as it was just a few years ago.
• 04:48 I'm finding that this has become the dominant form of project team meetings.
• 04:53 There are a few more technologies to mention.
• 04:55 One is email, this is great for
• 04:57 sharing documents and providing a searchable record for communication.
• 05:02 You can also send the same message to many people to ensure consistency.
• 05:06 But you have the problem of uncertain feedback.
• 05:09 In fact, you may be surprised to know this, but
• 05:12 there are some people who don't read all their emails.
• 05:17 And even if they do read their email, they may not read it for a day or two.
• 05:21 Another technology that is becoming much more prevalent in the last few years is
• 05:25 text messaging.
• 05:26 These are quick, focused, interactive, and are great for short messages.
• 05:30 I find them difficult to use with long messages or
• 05:33 when trying to send large documents.
• 05:35 But for day to day, hour to hour status and coordination it's a great approach.
• 05:40 >> There are many things that constrain team communications.
• 05:43 Fortunately, most are manageable.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.