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One of the key duties of the club officer VP-Education in a Toastmasters Club is to schedule people in advance of the meetings so that the Toastmaster meetings are conducted as effectively and efficiently as possible.    They should be effective in that each person assigned the role is prepared for the role, and they should be efficient in that each person should take only the allotted time given that role.   The end result will be a meeting that will not only be pleasant for those members of the club, but it will be impressive for potential members who come to your club.

1.  Club Scheduler

One method of scheduling uses a Club Scheduler or other software to plan meetings ahead of time.   The advantage of this is that it gives you as VP-Education the ability to schedule roles ahead of time, and it also is an effective back up to the Secretary role in that it can record who actually does the roles in each meeting.

2.   Excel

You can use a simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that you pass around to the members beforehand.   This requires SOME computer knowledge, or you can ask people to send you their requests for speaking, evaluator, or support roles and you can fill them in the spreadsheet.

3.  Online Agendas

Most clubs have a website where you can sign up for the roles online beforehand.   More and more clubs are doing this because of the convenience of being able to sign up anytime, and practically anywhere for a role in an upcoming meeting.

Okay, that covers the basics of the MECHANICS of scheduling.   How do these work in general?    Well, there are two basic philosophies of scheduling:

A.    Role Assignment

In reality, the Club Scheduler and Excel spreadsheet methods can be used by the VP-Education to assign roles ahead of time.   That’s what I did in one club as VP-Education.    This ensured that people not only did speeches, but also got a well-rounded experience by also doing evaluations and various support roles.    The VP-Education can judge if the person is a new member and can take relatively simple roles (Timer, Grammarian), or whether they have enough experience to handle a more difficult role (Table Topics Master, General Evaluator, or Toastmaster).    The VP-Education can judge if the person has not spoken in a while and needs to be encouraged to do a speech.

Of course, the other good thing about this method is that it can be used to produce a list of who has done speeches and roles in the various meetings so that the Educational Record of each member can be filled in and verified if necessary.

B.   Laissez-Faire (Self-Assignment)

Signing up online is an example of self-assignment.   This sounds really good in terms of the convenience to the member.  However, in reality I have found that it leads to the following:   everybody wants to sign up for speaking roles, but you find yourself going into a meeting with a lot of support roles left unfilled.

C.    Combination of both

What I have found works the best is a combination of both.    Set out an multiple-meeting agenda asking for volunteers for speaking and support roles for the next 3 or 4 meetings; ask if anybody knows ahead of time that they will be absent for a particular meeting.    Once you get this information, then record the volunteered roles (speaking, evaluation, or support roles) in some sort of spreadsheet or even a text document if you prefer.

The next thing you need to do is find out which roles are missing.    Ask for volunteers for the “missing roles”, and then if there are still any missing roles, then start assigning roles, and confirming with the people involved that it’s okay with them to do the role.

So the multiple-meeting agenda should be sent at least two weeks before the next meeting; then asking for volunteers for the missing  roles should be done one and a half weeks before the next meeting.    You can start assigning the remaining roles one week before  the meeting.   This gives you the week to confirm all the roles, and to be ready to make any changes if necessary.

This combination allows the flexibility of people volunteering for roles, but also makes sure that the agenda is firmed up AT LEAST ONE WEEK before the meeting.   This will ensure a meeting that is smooth flowing, allows for last-minute changes, and impresses guests.

I’ve done the Vice-President Education role twice now and this system works!

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1.  Introduction

In explaining process 10.2, Manage Communications, the 5th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide not only explains the individual tools & techniques, namely communication technology, communication models, communication methods, information management systems, and performance reporting. 

But it then goes beyond that explains some of the general features of those tools & techniques, and that is the subject of today’s post.

2.  Techniques and considerations of project communications

Let’s discuss these in turn:

1)  Sender-receiver models

Encode →  Transmit Message →  Decode →  Acknowledge →  Feedback/Response

One of the overlooked steps in communication is acknowledge, which means to confirm the receipt of the message.   Here is the point where the person can simply assume they understood the message, and give a feedback or response.  The problem with that is that they may have misunderstood the message.    This engenders a whole cycle of miscommunication, all of which can be avoided by acknowledging receipt of the message.   This is the time where you can clarify and confirm one’s understanding BEFORE you take the trouble to respond.   That extra step can reduce the risk of miscommunication.

Some people have a form of acknowledgement that tells them when an e-mail was OPENED, although it can’t tell you whether it was read, or even better, understood.    That’s another form of feedback loop that is sometimes helpful.

2)  Choice of media

If you have someone on your project team that is not completing his or her project assignments, do you send them a formal letter of reprimand first?   I would hope not; I hope the first time it occurs that you have an informal verbal communication, face-to-face.   If it happens repeatedly, only then would you want to resort to going to a formal verbal and then, if necessary, written communication on the subject.    This is in its own way a form of escalation of the form of communication.

An important e-mail communication might profitably be followed by a telephone call.   “But I sent you an e-mail” does not absolve you of your responsibility to get the message across.   Yes, you may have sent an e-mail, but so did many, many other people on that same day.    How do you know it didn’t get buried, or accidentally sent to the wrong folder, etc.?

PMI may be somewhat old-fashioned in the sense that it prefers face-to-face meeting rather than e-mail communications.   I must admit I fall into that “old-fashioned” category myself, although with today’s busy world, one must accommodate people’s schedules and having a face-to-face meeting at a moment’s notice may not always be possible.

One of the reasons why the “choice of media” is important, because PMI considers e-mail to be an informal method of communication (as opposed to a letter).    The millennial generation considers it formal, with texting being the preferred informal method of communication.   So be aware of the generational differences on your project, not just the cultural ones.

3)  Writing style

The passive voice (“mistakes were made”) removes the agent from the sentence, and is a form of linguistic alienation that is associated with a bureaucracy.   The best writers use the active voice, because it is more direct and includes the reader in the communication by means of addressing him or her.   I tend to use too many words in my effort to get my point across; others may use to few.    In the former case, you risk boring the recipient, in the latter case, you risk confusing them.    Finding the right balance is the key!

4)  Meeting Management Styles

Having an agenda with the items to be discussed, and preferably a schedule of how much time is allotted to each, is essential if you are not to waste everyone’s time.   If someone needs to bring information or documents to the meeting, make sure this is clearly stated.   Once at the meeting, if someone unwittingly tries to sabotage the agenda by taking too long to discuss a point, or inserting another point of discussion into the meeting, then use the firm but polite response of tabling that discussion for later.    Those people whose eyes are glazing over or rolling around will thank you for it!

5)  Presentation Styles

Here I go with another plug for Toastmasters, but you will learn everything you need about how to run effective meetings and effective presentations within those meetings if you join Toastmasters.    No more “Death by Powerpoint” presentations!

6)  Facilitation Techniques

In the project managers’ Toastmasters Club I used to belong to, many times the meeting would warm up with a joke, and many of these had to do with three people:  a software engineer, a hardware engineer, and a project manager.   The joke usually centered around some incompatibility or even hostility between the mindsets of the software engineer and hardware engineer.    Even though these are jokes, people laugh because they recognize the truth on which they are based:   that these engineers often times have different priorities and you as a project manager have to be able to facilitate discussion between the two groups.

7)  Listening Techniques

Active listening takes the feedback loop discussed in section 1) above and extends it to the verbal realm.    You ask a person, “so let me see if I understand what you’re saying” and then summarize their point.   This extra step may save a lot of confusion and misunderstanding.    Knowing how to use objective standards in discussing alternatives, but making sure people know that the opinion you are giving IS an opinion (“I think that …” vs. “it is the case that”) helps to get people’s ego “offline” to be able to discuss the question dispassionately without the perception that you are attacking them personally.

These are just some general observations about communications that I have elaborated on, but I think it was wise for PMI to include them in the 5th Edition because they definitely apply throughout the length of the project, from the kickoff meeting to the closing ceremony.

The next post will be about the contents of “performance reporting”, one of the key outputs of process 10.2 Manage Communications.

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1.  Introduction

The second out of three communications-related processes is a process in the Executing Process Group, and it is used to, as its title suggests, to manage communications during the course of the project.  This post describes the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs that belong to this process.

2.  Inputs

Inputs include the communications management plan, which is an output of the last process 10.1 Plan Communications Management.  This will be updated during the process.  EEFs and OPAs, the company culture and the company’s previous experience with similar projects, respectively, are also considered inputs to the process.  Perhaps the most important input is that of work performance reports, the output of process 4.4 Manage and Control Project Work.  This is the information which will be communicated by the process.

3.  Tools & Techniques

The information on the project performance is what will be communicated.  How that information will be communicated is determined by an analysis of the methods and technology available to the project manager.  Communication models create a theoretical framework within which all of these other tools & techniques can be made to serve the needs of the project, and to make sure communications are effective and efficient, meaning that only the necessary communication goes to the required stakeholders and only to those stakeholders.  Information management systems, including the project management information system (such as Microsoft Project), are an essential tool in managing communications.

4.  Outputs

The outputs of Plan Communications Management are the communications themselves, the information on the project performance.  Some elements of the Project Management Plan, such as the project baselines, the Communications and Stakeholders Management Plans, may receive updates, as well as many of the project documents and OPAs.

The next post will deal in general with the tools & techniques of Managing Communications.

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The following chart contains a list of those elements which may be contained within a project’s Communication Management Plan, the output of process 10.1 Plan Communications Management.  The 5^th Edition PMBOK® Guide merely lists them, but I have decided to organize them a bit by listing those elements which pertain to a specific management area, or in the last case, the Environmental Enterprise Factors or Organizational Process Assets.

As you can see, the communications knowledge area intersects with a lot of other knowledge areas, and this chart shows this interaction.   The communications management plan should include guidelines and templates for project team meetings, virtual meetings, and e-mail communications.

The main purpose of the communications management plan is to be a reference for the two processes to follow, process 10.2 Manage Communications in the Executing Process Group and 10.3 Control Communications in the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group.

The next post will be on the next process 10.2 Manage Communications.

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Fatima Imam, a professor of Indian history at Lake Forest college, gave an introductory lecture on Sufism for those members of the interfaith group Common Ground at their satellite “campus” in Flossmoor, Illinois on July 10, 2013.    This post is a summary of the main points of her talk. 

The popular definition of sufism is that it is a form of Islamic mysticism, but that then gets the question of what “mysticism is”.   If you define “mysticism” as the individual’s search for God (or Allah), then this is something that does not necessarily contradict the “outer garment” of the religion of Islam.    However, when you use the phrase the “experience of union with Allah”, then that presents some theological issues.

Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, are religions of relationship with God, not of identity with the divine principle as the religions of the East (Hinduism and Buddhism).   Thus mystics in Islam, as well as mystics in Christianity, have always skated on thin theological ice, because the experience of union with God seems to go against basic religious precepts.

And yet, the whole thrust of Sufism is experiencing God rather than just trying to pray to God.    The American psychologist William James once said, “religion is a defense against religious experience.”   What he meant was that a religion can be a set of concepts or ideas known to the mind, but a religious experience can involve one’s whole being, and can go beyond the mind.    It is this “beyond” of the direct experience of God that Sufis try to capture.

How do they do it?   Well, that’s where practices such as music, dancing, poetry, etc. come in that are considered “haram” or forbidden in more traditional forms of Islam.   They are ways of taking you beyond yourself as you know yourself, and thrusting you out beyond your usual comfort zone to experience God in some direct manner, beyond the reach of one’s familiar precepts or concepts.

Another Sufi tradition, beyond various spiritual practices that encourage the direct experience of God, is the tradition of having a teacher that can challenge you in your quest for that experience.

In reality, the entire religion of Islam, whose touchstone is the book of scripture called the Qur’an, started with a religious experience.   Mohammad would go into a remote cave and meditate, and meditate, and finally, he experienced the voice of the angel Gabriel telling him to “write”, what eventually became the first words of the Qur’an.   So the distinction between a direct religious experience and the reading of a spiritual text is something which came later; in the beginning of Islam these two were united the experience of Mohammed.

There were many questions from the audience, and I think Prof. Imam did a good job in explaining that, although it may be called “mysticism”, it still retains its Islamic character by using the Qur’an as its starting point.    I appreciated  her attempts to explain this enormously complicated and immensely varied tradition in the space of two short hours.

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The last of the five tools & techniques listed for process 10.1 Plan Communication Meetings.

The PMBOK® Guide says that the project manager needs to have discussion and dialogue with the project team in order to

1. Update and communicate project information, and
2. Respond to requests from stakeholders for information

Meetings are often a great tool for accomplishing the above IF they are done in such a way to minimize the intrusion upon the participant’s time and therefore to make the most value out of the time they are giving up in order to attend the meeting.  For that reason, PMI recommends the following.

1.   Meetings should be for the purpose of resolving problems or for decision making ONLY

What PMI does NOT say is also important:   Meetings should not be used for obtaining the status on a project.   These “go around the room” type of meetings where each person reports on the status are a WASTE OF TIME and should be avoided.   How should status be reported?   Outside of the meeting, or preferably, in preparation for one.

2.  Meetings should have a defined list of issues to be addressed

The meetings should have a list of issues that is specific.   What PMI does not say is also important:   the meeting should STICK to those issues, and anybody who brings up discussion outside the defined list of issues should have their comments tabled for a future meeting.    Also, a certain amount of time should be alotted to each issue so that the meetings ENDS on time.   If the discussion is not completed on any issue, then this discussion should also be tabled for a future meeting.

3.  Meeting agenda should be distributed beforehand

This will allow for people to prepare for the meeting so that the discussion is fruitful.

4.  Meeting agenda should be distributed to stakeholders on an as-needed basis

Some stakeholders may receive the agenda who will not attend the meeting, because they are in the “consult” or “inform” category for any particular topic.   Anybody who is “responsible” or “accountable” for any particular topic should attend the meeting, and definitely needs to be given the agenda.

5.  Meeting minutes should follow the meeting

This gives a list of action items for people to follow up, and it is a convenient place to have them to refer to.  Also, if someone disagrees about the contents of the meeting, it is best to clear this up as soon as possible after the meeting while people’s memories are still fresh.

6.  For God’s Sake, Join Toastmasters

All right, this last one isn’t in the PMBOK® Guide, but I can tell as someone who has experience at Toastmasters that learning to run a Toastmasters meeting on time is the BEST training for running a corporate meeting on time.    It will show you how to  execute a meeting, and how to “monitor and control” it, to use project management language.  I have seen members of a meeting hijack the agenda with irrelevant questions, comments, etc., so many times, and it is during Toastmasters that I learned to be able to steer the meeting back in a diplomatic, but firm way.

7.  Conclusion

If the meetings are professionally run, they will be enjoyable to participate in, and not a form of punishment that should be proscribed by the Geneva convention.    The principles stated in the PMBOK® Guide are important but sometimes overlooked guidelines; the practice of them will make not just your meetings, but the entire project run more smoothly.

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One of the tools & techniques of the process 10.1 Plan Communication Management is understanding communication methods you might use on a project.  The purpose of this post is to describe these three methods and give examples of the kinds of communication represented by each method.

The interactive method is what we usually think of as communication that is “live”:  it is “many-to-many” communication.  The push method is for “canned” communication that is sent from one person to several recipients:  it is “one-to-many” communication.  The pull method is for canned information that is not sent to several recipients; rather the recipients come and collect the information from the central source.  This is more for training and databases that might be helpful for a project.

For status reporting purposes, the push method is the best.  For general information, the pull method is the best.  For discussion, in particular regarding a decision that must be made, the interactive method is the best.

Why is this a tool & technique of the Plan Communication Management process?  Because the Communication Management Plan should specify which of the methods, and which of the communication forms listed under “examples” should be used.

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Yesterday I participated in a workshop called Sacred Communication that was put on by Rev. Henrietta Byrd at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Park Forest, IL.   The purpose of this post is to describe the workshop in general, because  it has given me much pause for reflection since I participated in it yesterday.

1.  Introduction

Ironically, this is the week that I have been writing posts on Communication Management for my review of the Guide to the Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK Guide for short.    The purpose of Sacred Communication was to show ways in which we can make our internal communication stronger and more authentic, so that we can then communicate with others in a more authentic way.

2.  Sacred Communication–Principles

As Henrietta Boyd explained the workshop, the ideas behind Sacred Communication are as follows:

• You cannot have authentic communication with others unless you have authentic communication with yourself.
• You cannot have authentic communication with yourself unless you separate those thoughts and emotions which come from your deepest aspirations, as opposed to those you have been conditioned to assuming by the environment in which you live.
• The ethical basis with which you treat other people must be the same basis that you treat yourself.
• Authentic communication comes from treating yourself with the ethical basis of compassion.
• Compassion has two forms, yin and yang, or what we normally think of as normal compassion and what is commonly termed “tough love”.   The wisdom of knowing what form of compassion to use at what time is developed from experience.

3.  The Language of Spiritual Communication

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1.  Introduction

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “All bad art is sincere.”  For the word “art”, let’s substitute the word “communication”:  “all bad communication is sincere.”  What does this epigram mean?  What is means is that, if by “sincere” you mean that “what is in your heart comes out of your mouth”, then bad communication is something which, although heartfelt,  somehow “loses translation” from the time it leaves your mouth to the time it gets to the other person’s ear, and into their heart (or mind).  In other words, sincerity is not enough; you have to have the skillful means of communication in order to make sure the message gets through to the hearer.  A communication model can be for communication what the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis does for design:  it is a way to pinpoint the various ways in which a communication can possibly go wrong, in order to make sure that you get it right.

2.  Communication Model

What are the five steps in a communication?  Here is a chart which summarizes them.

3.  Discussion of Communication Steps

Here are some thoughts on the various steps in the communication process.  The idea is what can go wrong at each step, and how can you minimize the risk of such a communication failure?

a.  Encode

The simpler the message in terms of language and length, the easier it is to decode on the other end.  Many project managers like to use humor as a way to “break the ice” in communication and establish a rapport with the “audience”.  Since humor, especially a play on words, is often very language-specific, this is the kind of communication that risks being misunderstood.  I was at an international physics conference when I was at the University of Illinois, and one of the professors giving a talk started writing down the details of an equation, looked at the time and realized he didn’t have enough time to write them all down, and said to the audience, “well, the final result comes out in the wash.”  I knew that the phrase “in the wash” meant “after all of the mathematical calculations are done.”  However, this professor was then asked by a Russian colleague who was listening to his talk, “what means ‘the answer comes out in laundry’?”  He was thinking of “the wash” in a literal sense, and not in the metaphorical sense that the American physicist was speaking about.  Somehow, one of the Russian graduate students grasped this miscommunication, and started explaining to the professor in Russian what was meant.  The proverbial light bulb went off, and he smiled and said, “panimayu” (“I understand”).

b.  Transmit Message

What can cause the transmission or signal to be altered by noise?  It could be the distance itself, although nowadays error-correcting codes and algorithms try to reduce any possible noise that creeps into an electronic signal along the way.  More often, it is the cultural differences or lack of background information, that is, elements internal to the receiver and not external that cause the message to be distorted.  This is why cultural sensitivity is important as a project manager involved in an international project.

c.  Decode

Many times the decoding process can cause the original message to be lost because of emotional biases internal to the receiver.  If I say, “good afternoon, Jack!” and Jack responds, “What the hell do you mean by that remark?”, it’s probably a good bet that Jack is interpreting my (rather neutral) message based on either some event that has occurred earlier in the day or some other experience that is coloring my message in some way other than what I had intended.  Besides cultural sensitivity, therefore, it is important to add emotional intelligence to one’s repertoire of understanding as a project manager.  A more realistic example than the one I just gave is how one’s style of management can be interpreted differently by different people based on their own temperament.  If you are a “hands-on” manager who likes to give people specific direction, the phrase “do you need any help?”  may be welcomed by a new member of the team but may be resented by a “veteran” as interference, condescension, or in some way other than what was intended.  Likewise, a more “laissez-faire” attitude may be welcomed by a skilled team that has been through the mill on a similar project before, but may be considered “standoffish” by a person new to this kind of project who might appreciate some direction.  How do you know whether the decoded message is the same one you sent?  That is where the next two steps come in.

d.  Acknowledge

Acknowledging receipt of the message without indicating a reply may seem an unnecessary or even redundant step by some.  However, consider the word “hai” in Japanese.  It means “I understood what you said.”  It does not mean “I agreed with what you said.”  In taking a telephone message for another person, for example, it is sometimes helpful to repeat what the caller wants that person to do, so that if there any mistakes, they can be corrected right there and then.  This is because the context which the caller and the intended recipient may share could be unknown to you, and you may try to interpret the message in a way that makes sense to you, but which may alter the original intended meaning of the message.

e.  Feedback/Response

Actually, if you look at it carefully, the feedback/response actually mirrors steps c and b in that order.  First the reply is translated from thoughts into language (the return message or response), and then the response is transmitted back to the sender.  The reply may set off another round of communication, or it may not.  But the same principles apply in terms of encoding and transmitting the response that apply to the original message.

4.  Conclusion

Knowing the steps in the communication process can help you devise strategies to minimize the risk of a communication error.  These strategies should be encapsulated in one’s communication plan.  This is particularly important when communicating between countries, cultures, and languages.

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1.  Introduction

As communication technology develops, more options become available to the project manager to spread information about the status of the project to the stakeholders that need it.   The purpose of this post is to discuss the factors one must consider when choosing communication technology for a project.

2.   Factors in Choosing Communication Technology

a.   Urgency of the need for information

Status reports are more routine; when a decision has to be made on a crucial change request, however, the stakeholders who are involved in that decision need to be given the information as soon as possible so that they can provide input into that decision.

b.  Availability of technology

The communication technology needs to be compatible throughout the organization so that all stakeholders have access to it.

c.  Ease of Use

Just because the stakeholders have access to the communication technology, does not mean that they have the technical knowledge to be able to use it.   Training must be considered for those who need to get up to speed–BEFORE that communication technology is needed.

d.  Project Environment

Are the stakeholders who need the information in the same building, or are they communicating virtually?    If they are communicating virtually, are they in the same time zone or does accomodation need to be made for those in different time zones?

e.  Sensitivity and confidentiality of the information

The communication needs to go to the stakeholders, but ONLY to the stakeholders.   Are there measures in place to prevent the accidental or even willful leaking of information outside the circle of stakeholders that need to be told?   Will encryption be needed, for example, if communicating with stakeholders outside the organization?   These are some of the questions that need to be considered.

This is why a communications plan includes discussion of the communication technology, because the factors mentioned above need to be considered so that the communication is both timely and targeted to the right people.

The next tool & technique of process 10.1 Plan Communication Management is that of Communication Models.   This is more abstract, theoretical framework within which to considered the communications on a project.   That will be the subject of the next post.

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