Communication skills
According to a new university research on management skills, communication is the number one problem in almost every companies and government offices. This is a big surprise, especially in the information era when cell phone, email, text messages, are available to almost everybody.
By definition, communication is the process required to ensure timely and appropriately sharing of information between people. The research surveyed over 8000 managers to find out what the best managers are doing differently and what a typical mangers are doing in their daily works. The research found that “best managers” spend more time communicating than less successful managers. In some cases they spent up to 80% of their time communicating to their workers, they know how to manage the flow of information and make decisions accordingly. The research also found that “not so successful” managers are spending more time in meetings, reading paperwork or something to keep themselves look busy. They rarely make decisions and usually do not know what happen outside their work areas. Their “Busy-ness” is a cover up for their incompetent and their fear of failure. Overtime, these managers create a “bureaucracy” networks in the company where things take much longer, consume more efforts, and rarely achieve anything significant.
Every companies have goals and direction. If workers do not know the direction they will get lost, confused and often argued with each others. Without clear direction communicated to them, workers will do whatever they think is company's direction. This often creates conflicts among workers due to different opinions. Many will decide to wait, or not doing anything until they are told exactly what to do. Since information is still not clear from management, the problem will not get solved and nothing will be achieved.
The best managers know how to communicate direction clearly and accurately. They often make sure that every workers understand them and can move forward in the same direction to get the works done. Beside direction, best managers know how to set goals so they can measure how workers are doing in their jobs. Based on hundred interviews with successful managers, the research found that most of them follow a simple rule: “Do not communicate because you have to but always find out what workers need and provide it as quickly as possible. Make sure workers understand it well so they can get their works done accordingly. Always give them enough time and support to enables them to complete it and achieve their goals. Communicate as much as possible in team meeting so everybody hear the same thing.
In most software projects, communication is essential. Many failures can be attributed to the lack of communication between developers, testers, managers, users and customers. A good project manager always emphasizes on the free flow of information between team members, product owner, users and customers. They often use collaboration tools to share information such as whiteboards, wikis, blogs, text messages, emails, and phones. In Agile approach, there is a daily meetings (Sometime call standup meeting) where team members share information on a daily basis.
Most software people do not like to communicate with users until they complete their works. Many are afraid that the more they discuss with users, the more users change their minds and ultimately change the requirements. However, good project manager must know how to communicate with users. It is really about managing the issues that come up during the life of the project where nothing is hidden. This kind of visibility gives users the needed information and together with the manager, they can resolve problems or remove obstacles. Any issues arise during planning, execution must get tracked and dealt with as soon as possible. In that case, the project will likely to be more successful.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
