Make one person responsible for each activity

Each week, project management veteran Tom Mochal provides valuable advice about how to plan and manage projects. Tom first describes a common problem scenario, based on real-life situations, and then offers a solution using practical project management practices and techniques.

The dilemma
I met with Ted last week to discuss his project to install a standard manufacturing package at our new plant. Ted had managed to get his project back on schedule after some initial difficulty but was now starting to fall behind again.

“I think we are doing a lot right,” Ted said. “But as we are getting to the end of the project, I’m asking the team to do quite a bit of multitasking. As a result, the team is having difficulty completing their assignment on time.”

“It’s not uncommon to have a rash of work to complete at the end of the project,” I said. “This is the time where discipline and time-management skills are so valuable. Tell me more about why the work is falling behind. Does everyone know what’s expected of them?”

“I sure hope so!” Ted exclaimed. “I’ve tried to make it simpler by dividing the group into two subteams. Each subteam is responsible for about half the remaining work.”

“That sounds reasonable.” I replied. “What does your team say about missing their deadlines now that the project is so close to completion?”

“That’s one of the frustrating side effects of having two subteams,” Ted sighed. “I’m trying to give the teams maximum flexibility to complete the work however it makes sense. Now, since I am assigning work to a team, I don’t really know who to hold accountable when deadline dates are missed.”

I could begin to see a problem. “Ted,” I said, “you may have taken the team concept a little too far. Even though the work is given to a team, you still need to assign someone to be responsible for each activity. When people are working on multiple activities at the same time, it is especially important to have someone accountable for the work.”

Mentor advice
In a perfect world, all teams would understand what is expected of them, and the members would all hold themselves accountable for ensuring that the expectations were met. These types of mature groups are sometimes called high-performing teams.

In the real world, almost all teams fall short of this idealistic goal, and people don’t always understand what is expected of them. In many cases, they overemphasize certain activities to the detriment of others.

If there are problems, no one may step up to deal with it. In the worst case, anarchy might break out as people thrash amongst various activities, without the focus needed to complete any of them on time.

Just as a project needs one project manager, so each activity needs one person assigned to be responsible and accountable for ensuring the work is completed on time. If there is only one person assigned to the work, the responsibility naturally falls on him.

When activities are assigned to multiple members, one person still needs to be responsible for ensuring the work gets done. One person is responsible for providing status reports. One person can escalate issues and scope-change requests. There is also one person who is accountable when work is not completed on time.

In Ted’s case, he has reorganized his team so that they can each focus on their portion of the remaining work. However, he has opened the door to a potential loss of focus by not assigning one person to be responsible for each remaining activity.

Of course, Ted does not have to assign the same person to be responsible for all tasks. He can assign each of the members of the subteam to be responsible for specific activities. In this way, each activity has one person to make sure the remaining work gets done on time.

If they are accountable, they will also have an interest in making sure all potential roadblocks and issues are identified, addressed, and overcome, so that the work is completed successfully.

Project management veteran Tom Mochal is director of internal development at a software company in Atlanta. Most recently, he worked for the Coca-Cola Company, where he was responsible for deploying, training, and coaching the IS division on project management and life-cycle skills. He's also worked for Eastman Kodak and Cap Gemini America and has developed a project management methodology called TenStep.

Talking Shop: Improve your communication skills with these techniques

Why didn't you get the last promotion or new job for which you applied? It could be that the person who got the job knows more about technology than you do. Or maybe it's because poor communications skills let you down.

To those who couldn't care less about their communication skills, I say "good luck," because you'll get what you deserve in your IT careers. For those of you enlightened enough to realize that your communications skills are just as important as your technical abilities, I'd like to offer a few tips for improving the way you communicate on the phone and in person.

Pet peeves about poor phone etiquette
Whether you work the help desk, the network operations center, or as a developer who rarely interacts with end users, here are three ways you can build a reputation as a good communicator by practicing phone etiquette.

• Use a warm transfer instead of a cold transfer. If a customer (or fellow employee) reaches you by mistake, don't just say, "You have the wrong number," and hang up as quickly as you can. Don't say, "Just a minute" and transfer the call to someone else without explanation. That's a cold transfer. Take a minute to pull up your company's phone directory and try to figure out whom the person really needs to reach. Then, say, "I'll be happy to transfer your call," and announce the call to the person on the receiving end. That's a warm transfer.
• Say your name when you answer the phone. Don't be the arrogant jerk who answers a business phone, "Hello." Not every caller is going to be your spouse or a coworker who recognizes your voice. Sometimes it's a person with a problem, and they've been referred to you. If you don't say your name, the poor caller has to say, "Is this so-and-so?"
• Answer your voice mails in a timely manner. I don't know how many times I've heard end users or customers complain about how so-and-so in information systems is never at his or her desk and never returns his or her calls. You want to establish a reputation as a good communicator, so respond to your voice messages. Don't be the arrogant jerk who assumes that, "If it's important, they'll call back."

Improving your face-to-face communications
You've heard the old saying, "It's not what you know, but who you know," that gets you places in business. Guess what? If you don't practice good face-to-face communications skills, you're not going to get to know very many people.

• It won't kill you to smile. I know you're busy. I know providing tech support is stressful work. But when you walk into a conference room for a meeting, or when you walk up to an end user's workstation to provide support, for crying out loud, SMILE! Fake it, if you have to, but act like you're glad to be wherever you are. Don't go around with a scowl on your face all the time. If you're that unhappy, get out of IT and go find a job that you love.
• Look at me when I come to your cube. This is the biggest pet peeve I have about my fellow IT pros. I go to someone's cube to ask a question in person. I knock on the cube wall. I stand and wait, while the uncaring, rude, egotistical snob stares at the screen, not even acknowledging my presence. You know the ones. You clear your throat or say, "Pardon me, please," and the jerks don't even speak. They just nod, still looking at the screen, typing or clicking away. Hear me now and believe me immediately, my cyberfriends: There is nothing so important on your screen that you can't turn and face the person who has come to visit you. If for some unimaginable reason you really can't avert your eyes from the screen, have the courtesy to say, "I'm sorry but I'll be with you in just a minute."
• Invest in breath mints. My last pet peeve about face-to-face conversations concerns you five-break-a-day smokers and constant coffee drinkers. Buy a tin of Altoids, will you? Or buy a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste just for the office, and use them. You're stinking up the place. (Read "Perfume allergy makes tech support painful" by TechRepublic contributor Becky Roberts for a take on dealing with user-related odor issues.)

You're in control of how you come across
For many of us, the perfect techie world is one in which we'd be hired and promoted on the basis of our technical skills alone. But we live in a world where we're judged by how we communicate with fellow human beings. Don't let sloppy telephone and in-person communication skills prevent you from succeeding in the "bitnit" world.

In a future column, I'll share some tips for improving the way you communicate in written communications. In the meantime, be nice on the phone, and smile once in a while. It'll be good for your career.

Geeks and communication skills

Takeaway: It is a commonly held belief that geeks do not need to be able to communicate outside of Nerdland. In fact, it is an outright expectation. Programmers who gets nervous around pretty girls, systems administrators who cannot give a presentation to more than two people at a time, and DBAs that stutter unless they are [...]

It is a commonly held belief that geeks do not need to be able to communicate outside of Nerdland. In fact, it is an outright expectation. Programmers who gets nervous around pretty girls, systems administrators who cannot give a presentation to more than two people at a time, and DBAs that stutter unless they are discussing Dungeons and Dragons are what many people envision when they think of IT professionals. These are all common stereotypes of IT professionals. Sad to say, many IT professionals buy into this idea, and sometimes even actively encourage it!

I am not going to pretend to be surprised by this. Up until the age of sixteen or so, reaching Level 4 as a bard seemed more important than reaching first base with a woman. Weird Al Yankovich was “romantic” in my mind and a “nice wardrobe” meant a closet full of shirts from hardware and software vendors, preferable ones with multiple years’ worth of pizza stains on them to prove my “authenticity”. I thought that if people did not understand me, it was because they were stupid, not that I was unable to communicate with them.

Thankfully, I changed. Mostly. I still think Weird Al is funny on occasion, and the ratty shirts are still there (though they now tend to be Metallica and Mr. Bungle shirts from my post-ubergeek years). The biggest change was that my communication skills improved significantly. I took classes in high school such as AFJROTC and Mock Trial that taught me how to speak to an audience, with or without notes. My classes in college (I will merely admit that I double majored in “cannot-get-a-job-ology” which is code for “the liberal arts”) involved few tests, but endless amounts of paper writing. What few tests there were tended to be essay questions. In other words, I was learning a lot about communication skills.

What does this have to do with the IT industry? Plenty. If you want to know why your manager seems to be a “grinning idiot” with no clue what your job is instead of someone with technical skills, take a look at what that manager brings to the table. That manager is very likely to have an MBA or maybe an MIS degree. Their external learning is probably in “risk management” or Six Sigma, not the Cisco or Red Hat certification you just earned. The manager’s job is to interface between “the suits” and the IT people. The manager does not actually need to know how to do your job if you communicate your needs to him properly. What manager does need to know is how your job relates to the business.

It has been my experience since I started blogging about IT issues on TechRepublic, that the majority of the time when I receive heavy criticism, it is because I failed to write clearly and properly communicate my message. Sure, there have been instances where someone climbed all over me for using one bad example or analogy in a 3,000 word post, or where someone was obviously unable to comprehend the topic at hand. But by and large, when I receive negative feedback, it is my own fault for not writing clearly.

At my current position, my manager does not understand much programming (he knows some VBA), systems administration, database administration, networking, computer repair, or any of the other tasks I do. He knows how to run the company, deal with customers, and so on. He really does not need to know the gritty details of what the project is hung up on; he just needs to know how long the delay will be. He does not care what brand of motherboard I buy or what CPU I select; he needs to know the price and business justification for the expenditure.

Many of the IT people that I have worked with simply do not understand this. They fill a proposal with technical details, and expect the person reading it to understand the benefit of the proposal from the technical information. In other cases, they write an email that is littered with typos and spelling mistakes. These types of mistakes do not help the recipient to understand why they should approve your request or give your project more resources, or otherwise help you with whatever goal it is that you are trying to accomplish. Tailor your message for the audience. If the recipient is a technical person, make it technical. If they are a non-technical person, use language that a non-technical person can understand. As I often do for programs that I have written, I pass it through the “Mom test.” In other words, I ask my mother to review it. She is about as non-technical as it gets. If my mother can understand what I have written to the point where she can make an educated business decision, then it is a good communication.

Many of the IT people out there seem to think that this is degrading. These are the same types of IT people who make web sites that only display in one particular web browser, or require you to go find some funky external library, or insist that you recompile the application yourself without providing any documentation. These are the IT people that may be excellent at their jobs, but are hated by everyone that their job touches. You do not need to go this route. No one will criticize you or complain if you learn to effectively communicate with non-technical people. In fact, they will appreciate you even more. My experience has been that improved communications skills leads to better opportunities in life and in my career. If a manager is evaluating two candidates for a promotion, they are more likely to pick someone with less technical skills who communicates well than a more technical person who does not communicate well. Why? Because the person with good communication skills is able to show that they know what they are talking about, while the person without those skills simply cannot be understood.

If you feel that your communication skills may be lacking, there are things that you can do to help them improve. One suggestion is to read more books and magazines. If you already ready books and magazines, escalate the difficulty level of your readings or try reading about topics that you are not familiar with. I have found that crossword puzzles are great tools to expand your vocabulary. Try your hand at writing something, whether it be short fiction, how-to articles, or poetry. If you can, try to go to new places or talk to different people; sometimes we find ourselves in cliques with a shared mindset that makes it difficult to learn how to communicate outside of that group. There are lots of different ways to improve communications skills, but at the end of the day, they all amount to “increase the frequency of your communications, the diversity of the mediums, and the people that you communicate with.”

10+ presentation tips to keep your audience from dozing off

Takeaway: All presenters want an engaged, interested, fully attentive audience. For your message to be most effectively received, the audience must hear it. While there are many ways to gain and maintain your audience’s attention during a presentation, getting them actively involved in the message is the best place to start. Here are 12 tactics to get your audiences more involved in your presentation and your message.

All presenters want an engaged, interested, fully attentive audience. For your message to be most effectively received, the audience must hear it. While there are many ways to gain and maintain your audience’s attention during a presentation, getting them actively involved in the message is the best place to start. Here are 12 tactics to get your audiences more involved in your presentation and your message.

This information is based on the article “Twelve ways to engage your learning audience,” by Kevin Eikenberry. It’s also available as a PDF download.

#1: Ask questions designed to get a verbal response

Pick questions you know students can answer or have an opinion about. Getting the audience to respond verbally gets and keeps their attention focused on your message.

#2: Ask for a show of hands in response to your questions

Ask a polling question about their opinions, experiences, or needs. Getting the audience to respond physically gets them moving and mentally involved as well.

#3: Give them a mental picture

Use a verbal description to create an image of your situation or solution. Using the listeners’ minds in this way builds attention and helps your message remain in their minds.

#4: Ask them to create a mental picture

Activate their minds by getting them to think of a time, event, or example in their own life using the subject at hand. This makes your message tangible.

#5: Give them time to talk to each other

Give them a minute to discuss a key point with a partner or to generate questions or concerns. Working with others, especially when they might not expect it, will refocus their attention and raise the understanding of your presentation points.

#6: Give them a game or exercise

Pick something relevant and fun. Having fun helps people learn and understand.

#7: Repeat a word or phrase

Every time you say a certain word or phrase, have your audience say or do something in response. This repetition combined with their involvement drives home key points effectively.

#8: Have them talk back to you

If your key points are short and succinct (and they should always be), ask your audience to repeat those key points back to you.

#9: Give them a “quiz”

Hesitate before key words in your sentences and encourage the group to fill in the missing word or phrase. This keeps them on their toes and helps them see how much they may already know about your topic.

#10: Encourage their questions

Tell people up front that their questions are welcome any time during your presentation. And when they ask, be sure to answer. This helps them know that you are interested in them and their problems, not just in completing your presentation.

#11: Let them select the order of the presentation

List topics you plan to present on a flip chart and have audience members vote on which one to cover next. Giving people some control over the presentation builds their support for and interest in the topics.

#12: Give them a task

Start the presentation by giving people something to do during or at the conclusion of the presentation. By giving people a task — something to listen for or a challenge to think about — you increase their interest and lengthen their attention span.

Good consulting requires good communication

Takeaway: Don’t let a communication gaffe damage and possibly end a client relationship. Learn how to improve your communication skills.

Your technical abilities form only a small part of what you need to be successful as a consultant. Because your clients are all people (at least until the machines take over), skills in dealing with people can make or break any consulting engagement. One of the most important people skills you can acquire is the ability to communicate well.

Language proficiency

Let’s start with basic language skills. Recently, I worked on a project that required quite a bit of research. The available sources were severely limited, but I finally found an article by someone who had been there before and knew what he was doing. However, although the article was ostensibly written in English, the author’s grasp of the language was tentative at best. This made a difficult subject even harder to follow, so much so that if I’d had another resource available, I would have dropped this one. But I didn’t, so I fought through it and spent way too much time trying to make sense of every other sentence.

I’m not someone who thinks that everyone in the world should speak English. I like linguistic diversity — I know from experience that learning more than one language opens your mind to different ways of thinking. But in whatever language you choose or are required to communicate with your clients, you must be proficient. Consultants regularly bring new ideas that may be difficult for clients to comprehend. Don’t let language barriers make that even harder.

Language usage

Besides clearly transmitting your message, your use of language also affects your reputability. Even though the author of the article to which I referred above demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the subject matter, after reading the first few paragraphs, I might have been tempted to dismiss him as illiterate. Your use of language comprises a big part of your first impression on clients, especially if the first contact is not in person.

That doesn’t mean you should embellish your communication with lots of highly technical or obscure words (yes, I know I’m guilty of using obscure words). Words that appear designed to impress will usually have the opposite effect on smart listeners; your client may assume she is supposed to know what a specific term means, and she might find her lack of knowledge an embarrassment and be afraid to ask for the definition. This hampers communication rather than enhancing it.

Engagement

The key is to engage your audience — whether you’re speaking one-on-one or to a public gathering or you’re writing an email or a formal document. An informal, conversational style often helps to keep people interested. But there’s a big difference between using contractions, colloquialisms, and even the occasional bit of intentional bad grammar versus the unintentional mistakes that proceed from ignorance. The former keep people awake and engaged, while the latter merely present stumbling blocks to communication.

People attend better when they enjoy the process. It’s almost always good to sprinkle in some humor or colorful metaphors to make your subject more interesting for your audience. The most noxious tasting medicine can be made palatable by adding some sweetness, and even though that might mean that the recipient gets more sugar in their diet than they strictly need, the overall effect can be beneficial. Conversely, even the most fascinating subjects can be transformed into a Trail of Tears by a pedestrian presentation.

Engaging means tuning in to what your audience is thinking, and speaking directly to them. You need to listen at least as much as you’re talking. If you have a final answer on any subject, you can’t really have a conversation about it — you can only dictate what you believe, and people don’t like dictators even when they’re right. As with iteration in software development, exchanging information and ideas helps all parties explore the subject matter more fully — even if you disagree. So I find it helpful to promote the attitude that there are no sacred ideas — any conclusion is fair game for renewed discussion if that seems helpful to any party. That doesn’t mean that you have to question the meaning of existence or whether computers can actually work before you can tackle more immediate problems — but you should be willing to explore any assumptions that might blind-side you and your client. In my experience, most people usually err on the side of inflexibility — as if their answers, once concluded, should never again be questioned.

Remember, the goal is not to bring others around to your way of thinking; the goal is to find the best solution, even if that means having to admit you were wrong. Good communicators inspire others to think about a subject and contribute to the general understanding about it.

How to improve your communication skills

As with most endeavors, practice makes perfect. We live in an era where you can put content on the Web and get feedback from around the world. Use that to your advantage. Write regularly on a blog, or submit articles and white papers for online publication. Look for opportunities to speak in public. If you’re not yet ready for the stage, maybe think about joining a local Toastmasters to hone your skills first.

Every time you write an email or speak in person or on the phone, consider how best to get your message across to clients. Often, fewer words say more — and that means it’s time for me to shut up.