Project managers are orchestra leaders according to Dr. Stolovitch (Laureate Education). An orchestra leader is responsible for making sure that all of the musicians are playing together harmoniously.
Have you ever wondered why Dr. Stolovitch (Laureate Education) would compare a project manager to an orchestra leader? I have and so in my preparing for this blog I decided to define each role. An orchestra leader is a person who directs four sections of an orchestra but before he can do that this he must do the following:
The conductor makes sure that the music piece is interpreted properly by acting as the guide to the musicians or singers. He chooses and studies the music score, may make certain adjustments to it and relay his ideas to the performers so that when the music is played, there is unity and harmony. He schedules rehearsals, plans the orchestra's repertoire and attends to other matters concerning the group he leads (Estrella, n.d.).
A lot goes into being a conductor of a symphony and a lot goes into being a project manager. A project manager is responsible for coordinating all aspects of a project (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer 2008, p. 10). The project manager develops all of the objectives of the project, the goals, and budget, develops a team and monitors them plus a plethora of other task all fall to the project manager. In order for a project to go smoothly the PM must communicate with their stakeholders. Dr. Stolovitch says he read somewhere that 93% of communication is not in the words. It is in attitude and the spirit of the person doing the communicating, the body language and tonality of the person as well as the timing which are all ways of communicating with a person that are not verbal.
Communicating with Different Modalities and my Interpretation:
Phone: most of ongoing oral communication is done by phone. I think this a good way communicate if the PM cannot conduct a face to face meeting. Phone conversations can be used if there is a quick question that needs to be answered or if there is some task that needs verification, but if the PM is going to utilize the phone to contact people they need to make a written notation in a notebook or somewhere within their paperwork that a call was placed on a certain day, what was discussed, whether or not an agreement had to be reached and what were the terms. The notation should also include the name of the recipient.
There are drawbacks to a phone conversation such as the parties cannot see faces and facial expressions and sometimes seeing how a client or team member responds can tell if they understand or agree with what is being said. The PM has to be careful not to divulge information that all team members need to know, so that there is no backlash over having favorites.
Meetings: these are live meetings and should be utilized if there is something important that has to be said to the team and the stakeholders. These meetings can be beneficial because there is information that the entire team may need. Portny et al. (2008) provides the following tips for conducting a meeting (p 360):
-Set a purpose for the meeting
-Notify people in advance
-Start on time
-Assign a timekeeper
-Take written minutes of who attended
-Keep a list of action items to be explored further after the meeting and assign responsibility for all entries on that list.
-If the right information isn’t available or the right people aren’t in attendance to resolve an issue, stop the discussion and put it on an action item list to deal with later.
-End on time
These are good tips because stakeholders often work on more than one project at a time and so they will need to plan accordingly in order to meet and get task completed in a timely manner.
The drawbacks to meetings is that sometimes they are poorly planned and rehash information that the team members can read on their own, they can run over time and there is no clear purpose to the meeting.
Email or Memo: these methods work well if the written correspondence contains these tips provided by Stolovitch (Laureate Education):
-Begin with a clear purpose
-State the situation i.e. are deadlines being met; what is incomplete or is completed on the project
-Include possible solutions
-Indicate if a sign off is required
-Specify the form that the response is required to take
-Keep tone of all communications business friendly and respectful
Drawbacks could be that if team members and stakeholders do not realize that this is a form of communication that will be used the PM must make sure that when they start a project that they let the groups know what forms of communication will be used so that the written correspondence will not be taken for granted.
Summary: Communication is very important to the life of a project because the PM cannot do everything and those involved in the project need to be kept in the loop as to what is going on. The most important I learned from this lesson is that I set the tone of communication with my team members and stakeholders. Stolovitch (Laureate Education) provides the following guidelines:
-Let them know the frequency of communications
-Apprise them of the type or types of communication that will be used
-Tell them the language that will be used
-Establish rules on who can talk to who on the project for information exchange
-Avoid ambiguity because ambiguity kills
-Document everything; keep a journal that you can jot down conversations
References
Estrella, E. (n.d.). The conductor? Retrieved from http://musiced.about.com/od/musiccareer1/p/theconductor.htm 23 January 2014.
Laureate Education Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Communicating with stakeholders.
[DVD]. Baltimore, MD.
Portny S. E., Mantel S. J., Meredith J. R., Shafer, S. M. Sutton M. M, and Kramer,
B. E. (2008). Project Management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling
projects. Wiley Pathways 59-72.
Angela,
ReplyDeleteYou have certainly crafted the words to “begin with a clear purpose [and] provide possible solutions” with vigor that I hold near and dear toward any project assignment. People or often identified as the best resource available that drives a TEAM to ultimately succeed the first time, every time. Brainstorming, communicating and injecting new or innovative ideas is indeed the very grease required to keep the gears running smoothly. Excellent approach I must say! I think this applies to all forms of communication and it displays pride, respect and professionalism in every sense of the words. Group gathering, a.k.a. meetings are just as important to run this true concept to reach the objectives and goals. I recall a prior career in which I worked a department for aviation maintenance (A.I.M.D.). We often would joke about the acronym and have labeled it as Always In Meetings Department for many reasons. A simple informative meeting that should have taken no more than an hour would always be extended that really served no purpose. We were provided direction and yet still sat in our seats. To make a long story short, we simply cannot perform these tasks in our responsible program in the field if we continually are in a meeting room and not satisfying the needs of the stakeholder. What sense does that make? Yes, communication is an essential vitamin and mineral in our professional diets every day that cannot lack clarity at any given time. This ensures defining “each person in the project audience what his or her tasks will be and what his or her role in the task will be” until the project is completed (Portny et al, 2008, p. 283).
Reference
Portny S. E., Mantel S. J., Meredith J. R., Shafer, S. M. Sutton M. M, and Kramer,
B. E. (2008). Project Management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling
projects. Wiley Pathways 59-72.
Dave
Hi David,
DeleteI think that Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer (2008) did an excellent job of listing how meetings should be conducted. I especially like that the suggest on p. 360 that the PM should prepare for the meeting ahead of time so that they know exactly where they want to go in terms of purpose. They also suggest that an agenda of the meeting be circulated, people get invited to the meeting in so that they can schedule the time to attend. . . Portny et al. 2008 gave some really tips on the following pages.
I agree that you that meetings should not last too long because people often lose interest in the information being disseminated.
Thank you for responding to this post because you have a wealth of knowledge that is very helpful to me and others reading this blog.
Angela
Angela your posting is very vivid and draws a reader to want to read your post. With today’s technology and fast paced society I find it hard to believe that we need face-to-face meetings. However, I agree with the points that you made. I read an article in Forbes on 5 Habits of Highly Effectively Communicators. After reading your posting I went back and read the article again and your posting made even more sense.
ReplyDelete~Chuck~
Reference
Tardanico, S. (2012). 5 habits of highly effectively communicators. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/susantardanico/2012/11/29/5-habits-of-highly-effective-communicators/.
Hi Chuck,
DeleteThis is an excellent article! I agree many points of this article like keep it simple because people are bombarded with many tasks and just do not have time to be dumped on in a meeting. I also like the be visible and the first habit of making sure actions match up with words; people can spot management who says one thing and does another. When the actions and words do not match up then I think it breaks the trust of the TEAM.
Thank you for responding to this post and sharing this article. I am going to save this article or print it and add it to my class binder.
Angela
Hi Angela,
ReplyDeleteI liked the conductor/musician metaphor when it was used by Stolovitch and I like your expansion of the idea, which helped clarify your post. I am curious about how you perceived each of the three messages, such as their effectiveness, possible misperceptions or misunderstandings by the receiver, rudeness vs politeness, etc.
Lorena~
Hi Lorena,
DeleteFace-to-face meetings are very effective if they are kept short and are planned. I also think that they are the best way to get a feel for what people on the team are thinking because sometimes what the PM thinks is not the same as what each team member may think.
Phone meetings are effective in middle of the week when there is a question needs to be answered but the PM cannot meet with a team member. The PM just has to make sure that the call is documented.
I like the idea of email for disseminating documents in memos because then they cannot be lost. Also there can be a receipt attached to the email so that the receiver of the message can respond. The receipt serves as a document that the email was received and when it was received.
Angela
Hi Ange,
ReplyDeleteIn my mind's eye you created a maestro's masterpiece in reference to effective communication. I appreciated how you broke down each modality and considered the attributes and drawbacks of each. Your summary of your piece wraps up the essence of Dr. Stolovitch message relayed in our weekly resource, be clear, be concise, be diplomatic and included any and all possible solutions.
Thanks for sharing.
Bridget
Thank you Bridget for your response to this post. I worked to understand the reference of the maestro's piece from Dr. Stolovitch and that is why I opened up my post with the duties of a conductor.
DeleteA PM has to do a lot to coordinate the project just like a conductor has the responsibility of making sure that all parts of an orchestra work together to produce music that is harmonious.
Angela
I agree that live meetings should be arranged when there is something significant to share with stakeholders, but I have also been to my share of poorly run meetings and I know how much time can be wasted. You mentioned several of the tips that Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, and Kramer (2008) suggest for conducting a successful meeting, and I think the most crucial of these is assigning a timekeeper. Some of the most common frustrations expressed about workplace meetings include “not having an agenda, not sticking to the agenda if one exists, and having no actions result from the meeting” (p. 359). Portny et al (2008) also assert that distributing the agenda and relevant materials beforehand will allow team members to be prepared and productive during the meeting.
ReplyDeleteMaintaining the time schedule throughout a team meeting is essential if accomplishments are to be made. Murphy (1994) stresses that “the project manager’s ability to immediately take charge is extremely important” (p. 10). This is especially evident during project team meetings, in which the project manager must lead the agenda.
References
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hi Jennifer,
DeleteI think that Portny et al. gave really good tips on how to run a meeting as a PM. Their plan for the PM to make premeeting preparations is an excellent one in light of the fact that projects have strict timelines.
Angela