Improving Project Communication: Two Rules You've Probably Never Heard Of

 

Although Alexander Graham Bell considered his most famous invention, the telephone, to be an intrusion on his real work as a scientist, I don't think you'd find very many people today who would be willing to give up their cell phone.

We live in a world of instantaneous communication.  Cell phones, the Internet, text messaging, social media—all keep us connected and communicating, right?

There are times when I feel like technology has made communicating more accessible, but does it really make communication easier.  For project communication to be effective, we need to be thoughtful in how we utilize the technology.  It's important to remember that we may be writing an email or updating a status report, but the person on the other end of that email or status report is a person.  It's probably just the nature of technology, but sometimes I think it's a good idea to remember what makes effective communication, effective.

Here are a couple of techniques that aren't original with me, but might help you improve the quality of your project communication:

The Sundown Rule: 

Unless you work at Walmart, you've probably never heard of it.  According to their corporate website: "It's really just a twist on 'why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?'  Observing the Sundown Rule is very simple.  Whether it's a request from a store across the country or a call from an associate down the hall, we do our very best to give our customers, and each other, same-day service."

I work with a colleague who did a college internship in Bentonville, AK at Walmart's corporate headquarters.  He said the Sundown Rule is the real deal.  It didn't matter who he reached out to during the day, he would typically get a response before the sun set.

Would you treat email or other project correspondence among your project team members a little differently if you knew the expectation was a response before the end of the day?

No Email Fridays:

I heard about U.S. Cellular's No Email Friday rule a couple of years ago.  COO Jay Ellison thought it would make life a little easier and lighten the load for employees, but instead it initially caused a fire-storm.  In an article written by Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal, she quotes  Kathy Volpi, a marketing director who said, "I thought, 'He just doesn't understand how much work we have to get done, and how much easier' it is when using email."

With the exception of responding to urgent matters, normal email is considered taboo.  The initiative was designed to encourage more face-to-face communication with customers and co-workers, raise productivity, or provide a break from the ever-filling email inbox. 

It looks like it's been a success.

Even Ms. Volpi, now U.S. Cellular's director of product management and marketing, has become a fan.  According to Shellenbarger, "Gradually, she realized that reading and responding to all the email she was sending was probably a burden to co-workers.  Now, she makes a point of visiting co-workers on Fridays.  Business, she says, isn't only about emailing 'cold reports' and being efficient, she says, 'It's about human beings and interaction.'"

Would either of these techniques work within your organization?  I don't' know.  There are so many project collaboration and communication features incorporated into many traditional or online project management solutions that completely eliminating that type of communication might be problematic.  However, regardless of the project management software or work management tools you use, everyone can step out of their cubes for a few minutes and have a real conversation occasionally.

I have to admit that sometimes it's easier for me to ping a colleague 10 feet away with an Instant Message that it is to get out of my chair and actually go talk to him or her.  I wonder how many of us have forgotten how to really talk to each other as we IM, text, and email our way through life?  Give these two approaches a try and see if they will work for you and your project team.  You might be surprised at how effective your daily communication becomes when you incorporate a little face-to-face time once in a while.