Calm Down

You get an unfair email from the customer addressed to you. You publicly hear an opinion about you which you definitely don’t agree with. You face negative feedback which has to do much more with the “negative” part than with the “feedback” one. You are accused of something you don’t feel responsible for. I guess everyone was in those kind of situations. And it hasn’t happened only once.

Then you want to express your whole indignation. You want to answer immediately.

Don’t.

Calm down. Don’t let emotions to play first fiddle. If you can talk face to face about the situation wait until you can discuss merits, not emotions. If you can’t talk don’t rush to reply the email instantly. Wait. And don’t do the whole thing publicly.

Other way you won’t get what the other persons wanted to tell you. You won’t move closer to a problem solution but rather keep it where no consensus can be achieved and no one can learn anything.

Calm down, unless you keep your emotions boiling on purpose, which should be very rare situation by the way.

The Best Client

Have you ever thought which people on the client side you most like to work with?

You won’t find there people who squeezes you all the time. You won’t find those who don’t really care what they had to do unless there isn’t even a slightest argument against you. You won’t find guys who play office politics every single time you see each other. You won’t find formalism zealots. Or will you?

You’ll find those who you can talk honestly with. You’ll find people who organize meetings which are constructive and topical and don’t waste your time. You’ll find people who look for solution, not for a problem.

I’m lucky to work with several of them. I hope you do too.

Improve Flow of Information

When you work in a big organization or for a big organization you are familiar with that. All the politics, office games, minor and major squeezes etc. When a client wants to increase a vendor’s stress level. When a boss wants to encourage his team to work after hours. When two different teams try to delegate thankless task to each other. It’s always a game of half-truths and basically-no-lies.

How to do deal with that? Shorten information chain in your organization or part of organization. Encourage openness. The more you know the better are chances you’ll detect those games, which actually makes them useless. When you improve flow of information you can easily cross-check most of news you gather and categorize them among “let us blame you, please, please,” “typical minor squeeze” and “Houston, we have a problem” levels. As far as everyone passes information to all interested people organization can act better both when it’s time to call it a bluff and when serious problem in on the horizon.

It’s just so easy. And if you asked me, I strongly prefer to tell just a truth instead of playing office games. Unfortunately usually it’s not me who sets the rules and I have to dance like others play. When I think about it I know just a handful of people who don’t play their games in business and (what a coincidence) our cooperation was always good, no matter what issues we had to resolve.

Think of it next time you’ll be about to try all those old tricks.

The Way You Say Goodbye

We were discussing a vague point about our remuneration in the contract. It could be interpreted two, significantly different, ways. One was agreed among interested parties (including us), but reading the point literally we could request better terms although it would most likely end the cooperation.

The outcome of the discussion was:

It’s important how you say hello, but it’s even more important how you say goodbye.

When you end cooperation with someone, even when emotions play the role, it should be done even more professionally than you had started. Everything should be crystal clear. Even when the other side will reject to keep it strictly professional and you know it (sometimes you can be sure). After all, reputation of your company (and yourself) can be monetized better. Always.

Talking with CFO

I came across a note about communication with CFO (found via PMThink) about project funding. My first reaction was: “Why the heck those two guys should actually organize a kind of semi-informal meeting just to exchange a couple of messages.” And can there really be a problem in that place?

After a second I corrected myself: “Remember, you work for a small organization, you don’t even have a formal role of either type out there.” We just leave politics outside and don’t even try (as far as I know) to play office wars. That’s cool about small organizations.

But yes, when I come back to times when I worked for Comarch, which is a company big enough to bring all inconveniences of being corporation but not yet mature enough to offer all of its bonuses too (although I’ve heard it’s improving a bit), it start to sound familiar to environment Naomi Grossman on bMighty presents. In that situation the advice is quite a reasonable one, although I wouldn’t bet it’ll work very often. When politics is involved and office wars are on everyday schedule you shouldn’t really expect much of one lunch with your enemy... I mean adversary. Go then and take your CFO for lunch (if you have any) as the investment isn’t a big one, but don’t expect much outcome.

And if you don’t have CFO, lucky you.

How to Make Use of Conferences

Nothing was happening here for more than a week as I was experiencing quite a painful mixture of scheduled business trips and flu. Now I’m using the weekend to reduce lag in my commitments and to repair health a bit before the next trip, which is planned on Monday.

One of events I attended recently was a multi-day conference organized by one of our main business partners. As you can expect being two days on the road and another couple sitting in the conference room you lose a direct link to information about what’s happening in your headquarters. Quick email checking during brakes and urgent phone calls are all you can get. You become less productive considering standard metrics.

However the last event was for me another proof you can easily exploit this kind of situations to get valuable results. Here’s why:

• New ideas. No matter how poor is the content, you can actually find at least a couple of new ideas when you look for them. If not directly from presenters than basing on your loose thoughts or on discussions with other attendants.

• Ad hoc discussions. Coming to the conference in a group (even a group of two) gives you a chance to discuss every out of the blue idea instantly. You will either find a supporter to your idea or an adversary who will force you to better reasoning.

• Time and atmosphere for serious discussions. During everyday work it’s always wrong time to switch off and talk about important things which unfortunately aren’t the most urgent ones usually. Being somewhere far away and time to spare during evenings (or while traveling) there’s actually good chance to have those important talks.

• Networking. That’s obvious but still usually undervalued one. Very often the most valuable outcome is brought not from planned presentations but from informal meetings with hosts and other attendees.

As far as you don’t go to the conference just to nap during presentations and drink a lot of beer in hotel bar during evenings it can be really valuable even when the set of presenters isn’t a very good one. It’s almost all in your hands.

Making Meetings More Effective

Some time ago I wrote about frequency of team meetings. That’s one thing to know how often you waste the time of the team but another thing is to limit negative impact meetings have on everyday work.

Rules to remember when you organize a meeting.

• Keep it fairly short. You waste not only your time, but all of people who are invited. 20 people on 1-hour meeting? It equals half of a workweek of one of your developers. No, throwing a joke or two isn’t banned but don’t let the meeting pupate into a party or a lunch break.

• Information flow is the king. There’s only one reason to make meeting – exchanging information. Information is the most valuable resource in any company. It must be. Other way, information flow would just work and we wouldn’t be surprised every day: “Have we just promised that thing to the customer? How come? Anyone wanted to tell me that?” When you run a meeting and waste time of several people make sure everyone who can be interested is invited. When information concerns whole team, everyone is invited. When it is a project status meeting, take all people who are involved. When you’re going to play office wars, keep it exclusive for board of directors.

• Be on time. Maybe it is a surprise but being a manger you shouldn’t be 5 minute late. That’s not in good form. If you expect others to be on time, keep the rule yourself too. When you’re on time you can expect everyone else will follow. And they will as soon as they see you care to give an example.

• Know when to stop the conversation. It just happens – people start talking about technology and they suddenly discuss their holidays or new secretary’s haircut, or go down do deep details where heads of most of attendees just blow off. Someone should have stopped that a couple of minutes before. Someone should have been aware the meeting has been going in that direction. Is that possible you are that someone?

• Know when to end the meeting. If you were on meetings when either the silence rules the room when no one else has anything more to add or on those where people all over the place start chatting about different things rather loosely connected with the subject you know someone wasn’t able to end the meeting when it was time. And it really has nothing to do with meeting room reservation time. Meetings, you know, they sometimes die before they were planned to do so.

• Reserve resources. Oh, when we’re on the meeting rooms... Very often reserving the room for needed time isn’t so easy, but cutting agenda by a half just because there was only half-hour slot in the room schedule doesn’t really help with running the whole thing smoothly. Sometimes you just have to make some concessions for, well, things like rooms.

4 Ways to Tell About the Problem

Slips. Misunderstood requirements. Unexpected issues with technology. Problems with subcontractors. Lack of resources. Firefighting in other projects. Illness of key people. Mistakes in schedules. Lack of buffers. Delayed deliveries.

Everyday life of company which pays the rent developing software. It would be quite easy but, unfortunately, there’s a customer on the other side. And, what a pity, you have to inform them about all those problems. There are plenty of strategies.

1. Wait till they found out themselves. You eliminate unpleasant part of saying in front of The Big Ugly Client you’ve screwed. You delay a moment when the shit hits the fan. Unfortunately the shit is already big enough to make you really dirty.

2. Sell them some lies. There’s a chance they’ll buy your crap and nothing serious would happen. There’s bigger chance they’ll reject your crap and you’ll have to admit what the truth is. There’s the biggest chance they’ll find out what you’re trying to do and go mad. No one likes to be cheated.

3. Tell them but first prepare them. Send signals that actually there’s a chance that something possibly could go not exactly like it was planned. Wait some time. Eventually tell them, what’s really going on. Theoretically you should minimize client anger that way. Practically customer is often deaf when it comes to figure out your suggestions and usually you just delay a bit the moment when you announce bad news.

4. Tell them the truth. We sometimes call this tactic getting a knuckle sandwich. A scenario is simple – you go, you tell what has to be told, you stay calm when the customer sheds a bucket of animal dung right on your head and then you collectively try to find the way out. Besides rather unpleasant part with dung this tactic is fairly successful because you “buy” as much time as possible to execute emergency plan.

Personally I prefer the last option. I’m no politic and I’m poor at all those business games full of suggestions and signals. Negotiation skills aren’t on the list of my strengths either. On the other hand I feel well in situations when cards lays on the table and everything is clear. Even if that means telling tough things and taking all consequences of that. Like my mentor used to say in that business you need either tough backbone or tough ass. I think I have a bit of both and know how to make use them.

The Power of Gossip

One of office games I used to play some time ago was injecting a fictional gossip into company and looking where it comes back from. It’s like injecting contrast medium to human body to see clearly on the X-ray how it is spread over the organism. I learned several conclusions from the exercise.

1. Never underestimate the power of Mighty Gossip. People believe what they hear and don’t really cross-check information.

2. Never underestimate the spread speed of Mighty Gossip. People talk with each other and share news which looks the most interesting. You meet persons who can keep the secret much less often that you think you do.

3. Secrets can’t be kept. Tell a couple of people something and you’ll hear that (possibly adjusted) from surprisingly different people.

4. The kitchen (or the smoking room) is the center of information. Go there and you’ll learn all the secret things.

5. The higher you are the less you know. People don’t talk with you. People don’t trust you. Sorry.

All those points teach the one lesson: share all information you can among the team. Don’t try to keep secrets among few people – just go there and tell everyone. If you’re stressed about the fact of telling people, your organization isn’t probably transparent enough and as a result people don’t really trust you much.

Sure, you can find news which shouldn’t be opened to everyone and you usually close them within specific groups (e.g. management). Anyway, the bigger the group is, the greater are chances something will leak and you go back to the point when you need to make your organization more open, honest and straightforward.

Shorten Information Chain

It happens all the time. Two programmers on different sides have to develop a piece of interface which integrates a couple of systems. It looks like that:

1. Customer’s Representative decides there has to be some integration work done. Vendor A is informed.

2. Here comes Project Manager from Vendor A. She agrees all the functional details.

3. Project Manager contacts Chief Developer and explains what has to be done.

4. Chief Developer finds victim er... Developer A who will do the job.

5. Developer A has a lot of technical questions (I mean a lot).

6. Questions are passed to Chief Developer.

7. Questions are passed to Project Manager.

8. Questions are passed to Customer’s Representative.

9. Customer’s Representative looks for someone from the Vendor B (deliverer of another system which is to be integrated) in panic. He finds Analyst.

10. Questions are passed to Analyst.

11. Questions are passed to Lead Developer on the B side.

12. Questions are passed to Developer B who implemented second system.

13. Answers are passed to Lead Developer.

14. Answers are passed to Analyst.

15. Answers are passed to Customer’s Representative.

16. Answers are passed to Project Manager (Vendor A).

17. Answers are passed to Chief Developer.

18. Answers are passed to Developer A.

19. Answers are vague. Darn. We go back to point 5.

In the meantime a bunch of emails was exchanged. A lot of time passed. Why don’t you just find a person who is able to understand enough details to satisfy all sides and let her bypass all other steps connecting directly with concerned developers? Why don’t you try to connect both developers directly? OK, with the customer in the middle it can be tough, but I’ve seen that so many times within the single organization.

I always try to shorten chain of information flow. Less hassle. Less delay.

Ask (Kindly) for Help

In project management unexpected problems are, well, expected. You know someone will kick you, the questions are: who, when and where? Hardware vendor, right now, sending dead parts. Subcontractor, next month, not giving a damn for bugs submitted to their part. People from support team, since Tuesday, ignoring your desperate pleading for work around of critical bug. Feel free mix parts of answers to get the right combination.

Possible Reactions

There are five possible choices how to deal with those issues. Each of them can suit specific situations.

1. Do nothing. Wait patiently for the issue to be fixed. If you don’t really care, why spend energy and time to move things faster? Why make all the mess?

2. Take it over. If you can. All those computer boards manufacturing looks easy. With soldiering iron and several chips you should make it. Okay, okay, maybe not so easy, but with software development this scenario is possible and quite often works fine.

3. Blow out. Express all your anger, tiredness and helplessness yelling at the other side. Tell them they should rather make ballpoints instead of developing software (as I was advised recently). Oh, sure you won’t make any friend that way and you hardly get any help, but you should feel happy at least. You told’em! Your ego's condition should skyrocket.

4. Ask for help increasing pressure. Let them know the issue is important and it can affect both your business and theirs. Show them context. Don’t expect they understand. They most likely don’t. Explain them like the grandpa to the cow on the balk. Keep it strictly professional and do it kindly. No need to show emotions.

5. Ask for help somewhere higher. If the above doesn’t work, and it just so happens quite often it does not, repeat but address the communication to someone who is mightier. The Big Boss, manufacturer instead of vendor, Father Founder and/or all saints. Don’t be discouraged because you’ve already heard everything possible was done and you won’t achieve anything more. Funny thing is, the higher someone is the more he cares about the opinion about the company and the more he can do. Both things can be very helpful.

When you have to deal with the really serious issue, go for number 5. Name the Most Important Person you can contact and send polite yet pressing message showing briefly all the background and asking (kindly) for help. Don’t listen to those who tell it won’t help and you could send your message to Mars either way with exactly the same (none) results. Surprising, Martians can be very helpful when asked in proper way. Maybe that’s why “we’re looking at helpful people in business like they were small green extraterrestrials” (quotation taken from Szymon).

And yes, we’ve just received big help from our Martians.

Building Sales versus Building Relationship

The difference in quality of delivered services/products/whatever is essential in building good relationship with the customer, which can be leveraged in greater sales volume. I already hear you yelling at me “That’s obvious! Tell us something we don’t know.”

Well, maybe it is obvious but when I consider vast (and I mean vast) majority of organizations I know I see quite different model – putting more pressure/effort/resources on sales process brings greater sale volume, which can be leveraged to put more pressure/effort/resources on sales process and so on until we’re rich enough to buy Microsoft.

I’ve had several discussions about the subject, especially the quality part, but have never really considered the subject from the perspective of possible sales growth. Fortunately David Maister in his post about relationship plans and sales plans has already done that. David’s formula is simple: you build relationship by adding something from you for free. Strong relationships in the long run will result in more money. On the other hand building sales is “about getting straight to what the provider wants: assignments and revenues” but if it works as expected is in doubts. By the way, now I expect David is already looking for sophisticated tortures which I’ll suffer for drastically flattening his thoughts.

Anyway, I did some review about real cases with both approaches. Several examples.

1. A couple of projects with bunches of opened issues and regularly overrun resolution times. We invested a lot of time to clean the mess even though the industry standard (or competitive solutions in other words) is on the same low quality here. One customer said: “You’ve grown from the company which can make small not very important stuff to the one which can deliver mission-critical solutions.” Another customer hasn’t said much, they’ve just given us another contract.

2. Several years ago we had quite good contact between our salesmen and a customer. We were doing quite a lot of different things for them. Or I should say we were selling quite a lot of different things for them. Some of them were done too, some of them partially and some of them weren’t even started. OK, that was a bit below industry standard but the firm hasn’t even tried. It ended up with loosing reputation and soon the customer.

3. When I was support team manager I used to have a kind of informal contact channel with the best of our integrators (the best technical quality, not the biggest sales volume). They could contact me directly, skipping all those formal stuff, whenever they had serious issue. Somehow that worked perfectly as I wasn’t overflowed with piles of unimportant things and integrators knew they always have a backup. Months after I left the support team I was still hearing hither and you “What a pity you’re no longer in support.” That hasn’t brought us significant amount of money I guess.

4. I worked in a company which had average sales but very good engineering team and decent product. After company was acquired the new management brought a lot of investments into sales team. Profits skyrocketed. Growth was steady over 5 years or so. Sure the investments in engineering team followed soon, but the catalyst of success was a sales plan. Not a relationship plan. I think the company has some issues with the image, but profits are still high.

The set of images above is a bit mixed, as I don’t share David’s point that focusing on building sales won’t work well. It isn’t written in the stone. Generally it should bring profits in the short term. However, unless it is followed with hard work on relationships it will end up with some problems with reputation and image.

On the other hand working on relationships is really a safe play. Yes, it’s possible you spend some money on actions which don’t bring direct ROI, but you probably don’t spend bigger amount doing routine firefighting every time when emergency shows up. You deal with more content customers. Cooperation is easier. And at the end of the day net profit should be equal but your team is happier and healthier.

Be Honest

I’m surprised how often people hide their true intentions in business situations. Instead of explanation of their goals and determination to achieve them they weave their way through unclear actions, change arrangements and strange attitude.

You’re capped at a specific budget in the contract? Why don’t you just send the message to the vendor allowing them to decide if the project can still be a win-win situation instead of using dirty tricks on negotiations which create poor atmosphere and lack of trust? You don’t have money to pay for the invoice? Say that on the very first day you know it instead of waiting until supplier is completely pissed off and see no reason to continue doing business with you. You want to sell your small piece of shares? Try to be honest with other shareholders and/or higher management so they can help you with that instead of playing your little games (one against everyone) which are doomed to failure. I could go with the list of examples for hours.

On the other hand I remind situations when we came to our customers and told the truth which definitely wasn’t the best news heard that day.

“We’ve decided to overtake the project from our subcontractors, what means you should expect the quality will be lower for some time while we’re overtaking the code. We’ll do everything we can to reduce the impact of the action on your systems.” Cold gaze and question if the quality could be even worse wasn’t the reaction I expected, but after all both sides knew what was to be expected.

“You ask me how many developers actually work on your project. Well, actually only 3 of them at the moment.” And I knew my predecessors would aim for the number between 20 and 30. The answer was: “Well, we see that clearly. That way we’ll try to plan our tasks in a way which won’t overload them.”

“Yes, we know you can’t overrun your budget, but we’re in the same situation – our owners expect we won’t take projects which are under water. We can either leave it or try to find a solution which will suit both sides.” And surprise, surprise, we haven’t lost the deal.

Sometimes I think honesty in business is considered as a serious error, while my experience is that it usually helps to build trust. And unless you don’t plan to do long-time business with the customer gaining their trust is essential. What’s your experience in that area? Do you find honesty common in business situations?

Brainstorming Meetings More Effective

I’ve just come from off-site meeting with our client. We’ve been in beautiful place far away from both our and their offices with old, well-known “no access to e-mail and limited access to phone” message set in our brains. One of points on agenda was a brainstorming session. Its outcome was impressive and that’s not only my opinion.

We go through this kind of meetings with that very client on a regular basis and usually we don’t spring a surprise on us then. We know most of the rules of successful brainstorming meetings (link borrowed from Craig Brown), but when you mill the same knowledge of the same people yet another time, chances aren’t high that you’ll find a gem. This time it was different. Why? There were several crucial elements.

1. Get out of the office. Move from the conference room, notebooks, everyday small distracting issues. Let yourself forget about next meeting in ultimately filled conference room schedule. You need another quarter? You have it. You need to go out to catch some fresh air? No stress. Atmosphere becomes more informal and more creative too.

2. Do it differently. Forget flipchart. Take some photos from magazines, glue, a couple of markers and a pile of A1 sheets. Create a story. Don’t treat it deadly seriously. Play with ideas. Then present it to the rest of the people. You don’t have to hit the jackpot. You need to keep ideas flying all over the room.

3. Make a competition. Split people to several smaller teams. Give them time to prepare a couple of ideas, then make a series of presentations and let everyone to evaluate them. The best team wins. And everyone wins because you gain another stimulant to think creatively.

And after all it was a lot of fun. Of course that’s not the most important thing here, but from business perspective it was a meeting on steroids. I’m looking forward to implementation of some of today’s ideas. I believe one of them is a real gem.

Calm Down

You’ve read an e-mail. Someone has really pissed you off this time. And I mean really. You start hitting you keyboard with all the anger you have inside, typing the “fuck off” type of answer adding all hidden and unhidden grudges you held against your adversary.

Stop! Calm down! Now!

Leaving the thing as it is – unanswered – gives you nothing. But that’s perfectly OK, because entering the discussion on that level can only harm you. You can earn a couple of new enemies, you can say a bit too much and you can deepen your frustration. It’s a bit like with Dilbert and Pointy-Haired Boss. Every time Dilbert stars the discussion it ends up with Boss hating him more and Dilbert exploring new levels of his frustration.

Yes, it’s so hard to ignore attacks on you, and these are attacks indeed, but most likely you’d be trying to talk to deaf people anyway. You could scream your lungs off and you’d see virtually no effect.

I know that it’s really hard to follow this advice. I know it, because personally I failed here way too many times.

Cutting Costs for Dummies

Cutting costs is a tough job. It’s difficult. It won’t make you many friends among coworkers. And it begs you to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When the company announces a new policy, which sucks, but at least will bring them some money they need, it’s most likely an e-mail addressed to everyone saying something like that:


Hello headcount,

This is our new cost-cutting idea, which sucks. Really sucks. The policy is effective since yesterday. Obey the policy!

Kind regards,
Yours Truly Cost Cutting Department


Yes, that’s the worst possible way of doing that. And somehow that’s also the most popular one. This is wrong on so many levels.

• You don’t give managers a chance to prepare people in a human way to incoming unpleasant change. Sure, in a big organization there are probably a bunch of directors who don’t care. Maybe the whole rest would appreciate when given the chance to avoid ruining their teams’ morale? Nah, they don’t care about that.

• You don’t explain people why it’s done. People don’t like to be treated as mindless golems. I’m not quite sure why, but it seems they just don’t. Maybe that’s the need of feeling important? Who knows?

• You don’t limit information to interested ones only. You spread the doom all over the place. Let them talk about that. Let it be the news of the month. Maybe that will affect their productivity but you can’t be sure.

• You don’t point exactly who is the subject of the policy. All the managers trying to explain their people that the e-mail is a bit too general and someone must have made a mistake accidentally will be grateful. In other case they would have to actually manage their teams, which is so boring. I guess.

You can take that all a bit further if you want. You can announce the cost-cutting idea to those who won’t be affected. Later you can explain them it was an accident and there’s no problem – they don’t need to change anything. You lower morale and productivity and gain no savings. Congratulations. Test passed.

Details Do Matter

I’m just after a small conference we organized for our customers. This time preparing whole thing was a bit trickier than usual, as we’re currently in the middle of re-branding process. We needed new pens, new notebooks, new business cards etc. Basically new everything. Several weeks ago we were forced by our marketing to choose design for every darn thingy you can imagine. Of course everything decorated with our new logo, which by the way we had to choose too.

It was a bit of a pain in the ass, but yesterday, when I saw all those conference trinkets waiting for people in the conference room they all looked professionally. Sure, no one will judge the conference basing only on quality of notebook and pen he got, but they’re on the list of things which can change attendees’ impression a bit. The series of them can change opinions considerably. Even when you have a great presenter but an air condition doesn’t work well, there’s not enough coffee during breaks, a reception desk is hidden somewhere in a corridor, constant noise distracts audience, presentations are too long and host plays her role poorly, the conference won’t be a stunning success.

Details matter. Details can change good performance into great one, but they can also change outstanding event into barely fair one. I think this time our balance of details were significantly positive. Our marketing team has definitely deserved some praise here. They’ve upgraded performance from a good to a very good level.

Talking with Team

I was asked a question:

“I must have been doing something wrong. It’s another time when guys from my team skips me and asks colleagues what they have to do, after I asked them to do something. What’s wrong?”

• Ask not demand. When you ask your people to do something, let it look like you’re asking for a favor, not like you’re demanding soma action from them.

• Talk more with the team. The better contact you have with your team the more likely they will come to you when they have some problem.

• Accept the distance. There will always be some distance between the boss and the team. No matter how hard you try you’ll never be the first person to talk when an issue arises. Asking the colleague is playing safe. Asking the boss can be a tricky game.

Public Speaking: Overcoming Fears

Last week, I was speaking at Krakow .NET Developers Group. Before the presentation I was afraid I wouldn’t complete my talk within given time. My wife commented the situation saying that I’d be stressed and would be talking faster than usual so I’d finish earlier anyway.

Well, while speaking faster would be a poor idea, because audience would hardly understand me and I don’t feel stressed much before public speaking events anyway, she was right about one thing. Most of people are scared of public speaking. People are scarred of public speaking even more than death as Rowan Manahan writes. And yes, being stressed we speak faster and we’re less understandable.

Although I like Rowan’s answers to the most typical fears connected with speaking publicly I’d add one more. Train. Don’t go through slides once or twice. Repeat it until you’re pretty sure that you can do it once more on a level you did it last time in front of the mirror.

My first try for 30-minute presentation usually takes an hour and a half. Yes, three times more than I have. And that’s perfectly OK, unless I want to finish training on that level. I just repeat it until I’m pretty sure I’ll match given time. For the subject I feel very familiar with and I could easily discuss it with friends or my team, it takes usually more than five trials until I’m ready.

Yes, it’s quite a lot of time spent for preparations, but it’s worth investing. You won’t lose your tongue after forgetting a couple of sentences. Unplanned interruption won’t be a problem. You can even throw in a quick joke if it comes to your mind during presentation, although planned ones usually work better. After training you’re just more fluent and it can be seen.

If you happen to speak publicly, take a time and prepare yourself. The whole thing will be easier. And believe me, evaluation results can be very rewarding.

The Best Way of Contact

Project management is all about contacting different people. You exchange information with the project team. You exchange information with vendors and subcontractors. You exchange information with customers. You exchange information with your bosses. Many different situations. Many different people to contact.

The best way to do that? There isn’t any. We use formal documents, e-mails, phone calls, instant messengers, face to face discussions and group meetings. We use some systems to communicate. And I’m personally very often unsatisfied with the way someone’s chosen to contact another person.

I always want communication to be effective yet to achieve its goals, so I try to follow several simple rules.

Immediate

When you want to contact someone immediately use mediums which allow you to do that. Phone or face to face talk. You send your message immediately and you immediately receive your answer. You are sure that information was delivered. Problem solved. Case closed. However, so many people are scared of phone calls. I’m one of them to be honest. I hate phones, but when I need immediate contact and can’t talk face to face, that’s no-brainer for me – I won’t choose something that makes me feel comfortable but something that makes me successful.

Proof

Sometimes you need some proof that a sentence has been stated. When a customer agrees that the slip was her fault. When a developer agrees with a schedule and you expect he won’t make it. When you need an ass-coverer to undertake some actions. Then you should choose something reasonably quick yet delivering the proof. E-mail. No guarantee you’ll get the response however. Quite often on the other side there’s a person who doesn’t want to give you your proof and just won’t do it. In this situation it’s better to have your information gathered in any other proofless way then to have nothing. Make your follow up with other medium.

Singed documents

We, in Poland, still live in the era of paper. Formal documents like acceptance protocols etc just have to be printed and signed by a real person with a real pen. Because teleportation of objects isn’t yet fully invented you need to send those documents in some way because I’ve learned to believe that something is signed when I see that, not when I hear about that. I need to see that paper is actually signed, so I expect the document to be faxed. Waiting for a snail mail takes much, much longer. Of course snail mail should follow the fax message.

Thing to remember

Sometimes you ask for something that doesn’t have to be done immediately but one has to remember about that. Another time when e-mail is my best choice. Addressee has it in her inbox, you have it in your outbox. That brings at least two reminders about whole thing.

Fast but not important

Sometimes you need some information relatively fast but that’s not very important. I use instant messaging then. It has shorter response time than e-mail, but still you don’t distract the asked person as much as you would if you’d came to her desk in person or calling her.

Knowledge distribution

Sometimes you need to share some knowledge within a group of people. It doesn’t really matter if it’s ad-hoc discussion about a feature, an architectural discussion or telling about a mess in the kitchen. The best way is the meeting. Not the e-mail message sent to whole group. On the meeting the discussion is easier, and you show emotions which is also important. If a meeting in the real world is impossible the answer is conf call or (if possible) video conference.

Workflow

Generally I’m not a zealot of different system supporting communication. I prefer basic methods. However there’re some situations when some structure is needed. A great example is a bug tracker. There you have a workflow implemented and some constrains the message should fulfill to be accepted. You clearly know who is responsible for what. It’s easy for you to find a one to blame. The more complex is the process of passing and/or accepting information, the more you need some workflow system.

All of that is quite natural when you use common sense, but surprisingly often I see it all messed up. E-mail generally rules, probably because of laziness – you don’t have to even move your hands from the keyboard. People are afraid of direct communication, especially phones, but also plain old face to face discussions. Talking in front of whole team makes them very uncomfortable. On the other hand sometimes the purpose of communication is forgotten and on the end of the day there’s no proof that there were any communication at all. Communication is one of things, which are so easy, yet they’re so often screwed up.