Speaking the Same Language
Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
When I first started in the project management industry, I was told two things that have stuck with me. Firstly I was given a statistic that I thought was an extreme exaggeration--that a project manager needs to spend 85 percent of his or her time communicating in order to be effective. That was backed up by a quote (which I sadly forget the author of; I hope they’ll forgive me): “If you think that you are over-communicating, then you are probably close to communicating enough.”
Over the years I have learned that both of these things are true, and where global projects are concerned I have learned something else: 85 percent isn’t enough.
The communication challenge
When we are dealing with remote teams there are a number of challenges. In most cases we lose the ability to communicate with body language as we rely on telephone conversations. While video conferencing and related technologies can help, they still aren’t the norm. Additionally, remote teams rely more heavily on e-mail or written communication, which leads to further opportunities for misinterpretation by removing the paralingual (tone of voice, inflection, etc.) elements from the communication.
When we are dealing with remote teams there are a number of challenges. In most cases we lose the ability to communicate with body language as we rely on telephone conversations. While video conferencing and related technologies can help, they still aren’t the norm. Additionally, remote teams rely more heavily on e-mail or written communication, which leads to further opportunities for misinterpretation by removing the paralingual (tone of voice, inflection, etc.) elements from the communication.
When we are dealing with global teams this challenge is further confused. There are a number of additional challenges that we don’t always consider:
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Even though we may all…
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