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Communications Across the Project - Building trust

May 24, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: HR Management, People Issues, Communications Management, Project Management Best Practices

Communications Across the Project - Building trust (#8 in the series Managing Multicultural Projects with Complementary Practices)
By Johanna Rothman

Another common communications barrier is people’s inability to talk about something important. Some cultures have taboos against discussing attrition, schedule slippage, or other potential risks or project problems. One way to deal with taboo subjects is to create an atmosphere of safety in the project. I’ve done this with anonymous email, with project suggestion boxes, and visits to each team on the project.

During each visit, I make sure the project team knows that they can tell me about any problem or risk, without making me angry. I explain at the beginning of the project that I want to avoid surprises, not bad news. I make sure that my PM behavior is consistent, so the entire project team gets the message that they need to tell me problems up front. I trust the project teams to tell me what their concerns are, and they trust me to help find a solution, not yell at them.

On a recent project with groups in Israel, Boston, and Chicago, the PM was concerned that although everything sounded great in the project, something was wrong. The PM didn’t have any specific information, just a gut feel that something wasn’t being discussed, and therefore was festering. The group leaders were all together for a meeting, and I broached the subject by asking, “What’s the dead fish on the table?” The three group leaders and the PM were surprised by my question. “What dead fish?” I explained that there was something they weren’t talking about. If we didn’t talk about it soon, we weren’t going to be able to do anything about it. The Israeli lead jumped up, and said, “I’ll tell you what the dead fish is. You Americans are going to get wonderful bonuses, and we Israelis aren’t!” The rest of us sat there, completely surprised, and the PM said, “Says who?” The Israelis had heard a rumor, and instead of verifying it, had decided the rumor was true. Now that the PM knew about the rumor, he could address the issue. (No special bonuses were planned for anyone on the project.)

PMs can use several techniques to help establish trust, including asking the project group what rumors they’ve heard. Although people may not speak up at first, by asking this question at every meeting, the group will come to understand that you genuinely want to hear about potential problems and concerns . Other techniques, such as checking on how “safe” people feel in the meeting by anonymous vote (i.e. on a scale of one to five, write down how comfortable you feel expressing your honest opinion and hand in the paper) and by specifically looking for risks, such as schedule chicken.

Original article can be found at: http://www.jrothman.com/Papers/Multiculturalprojects.html

Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. Johanna is the author of Manage It!’Your Guide to Modern Pragmatic Project Management’. She is the coauthor of the pragmatic Behind Closed Doors, Secrets of Great Management, and author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People. And, Johanna is a host and session leader at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference (http://www.ayeconference.com). You can see Johanna’s other writings at http://www.jrothman.com.

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