Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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Elizabeth is a freelance writer and project manager living and working in London. She runs The Otobos Group, a project communications consultancy specializing in project management.
Teaching a classroom of nine year olds provides some valuable lessons, or at least reminders, for project managers, including the importance of tailoring communication for each particular audience, understanding the environment people are operating in, and insisting on constructive feedback to build agreement.
Out of the mouths of babes… As a professional writer, I’m sometimes invited into schools to run workshops with children. As a project manager, I’m interested in how they organize themselves and their assignments. Here are three things I learned from teaching creative writing to a group of nine year olds at the International School in Paris recently.
Give Clear Instructions
In the classroom: “Write the name of a character, a place and an object on three different pieces of paper and put them in three containers for a lucky dip.” I knew what I wanted the children to do, but 14 blank faces looked back at me. I had to break the instructions down into smaller pieces (“let’s all write the name of a place first”) so they kept with me.
In the workplace: Break down information to a level your audience can understand. This is particularly relevant when we’re talking about project management deliverables and techniques, like risk analysis, earned value analysis, network diagrams and work breakdown structures, all of which fall into the realms of a foreign language for the …
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"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on." - Winston Churchill |