Why was the project sponsor angry?

In the cartoon above, the project sponsor is just a little bit unhappy with the project manager and project team. Why? Well, what the project team is delivering is not exactly what the sponsor wants on account of a misunderstanding of requirements. Naturally, a project manager is likely to have such things as requirements clearly documented and agreed upon with the sponsor and even signing to that effect somewheer on the docuemnent. But nonetheless, no project is without endless opportunities for difficulties and mishaps of all kinds. Just because a sponsor signs a document, that doesn't always mean or guaranty a meeting of the minds.

One communication technique that many folks advocate is the "Confirmation Conversation" technique. In this technique, the person listening to another repeats back what the other person just said and as close to word for word as possible. Confirmation greatly helps to ensure that both parties, the person talking and the person listening, are on the same page. For example, the listener might say, "If I understand you accurately and completely, you said...." and then restate the information that the person speaking just communicated.

This technique helps to clear up two kinds of communication problems. First, the speaker might not be saying what he or she really means. It is not all that uncommon that what one says and what one really means can be two different things. And of course the other kind of communication problem is when the listener doesn't hear what the speaker really said.

I am reminded of both of these kinds of problems by my dear neighbor who grounded his daughter from messaging to her friends on account of her text messaging from her phone at dinner. A few hours later, he was unhappy to find her text messaging from her PC which she thought was perfectly okay and not subject to the no-more-messaging punishment. Both father and daughter were not quite on the same page.

The Confirmation Conversation technique. Give it a try. And as always, if you have a favorite tip or technique for effective communications, I hope you will take a moment and share them with us.