I am constantly amazed by the number of project managers who believe, that e-mailing (especially using Outlook) is an effective communication process.
If there is one thing that Agile Project Managers do more than anything else it is communicating. Stakeholders, sponsors, team members and related project managers must be brought into the planning and the development process and, once included, they must be constantly kept “in the loop”.
55% of all communication between people is non-verbal. According to Albert Mehrabian (Professor Emeritus of Psychology, ULCA), between people who are communicating face-to-face, words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for 55% of the liking ("3 Vs" for Verbal, Vocal & Visual).
Though this is often mis-stated as 80% of communication is non-verbal (Hey, another example of those Poonsbanians!).
Agile project management requires complete involvement of critical stakeholders in every aspect if project management and product delivery. This requires a much higher level of formal and informal communication than traditional project management.
I suggest to my Agile Masterclass participants that Agile project managers should meet with critical stakeholders face-to-face at least every two weeks. Preferably, these meetings should happen in a neutral space (such as a coffee shop or canteen) We call this “doing lattes”.
When you meet a person over coffee, a subtle shift in relationship occurs. You are not meeting a stakeholder or manager .. you are meeting a person. The very environment relaxes you and the person you are meeting with and this should lead to more open and honest conversation.
Often, the accidental conversation occurs where something, that initially doesn’t appear important mentioning, suddenly becomes known to you.
“You know, talking about too many meetings, I was at a meeting two days ago and your Sponsor mentioned, in passing, that she was hiring a new consultant to review the strategic direction of her group. I suppose that might impact your project.”
Let’s face it. Communicating is hard enough to do so why would you email people (one V is working) when you can enjoy a good coffee and some good gossip (three V’s working).
I hope this one V message worked for you.
Mehrabian, A. (1981). Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes (2nd ed.). Wadsworth, Belmont, California. See Wikipedia as well.