Communicating with Stakeholders

When it comes to project management, keeping stakeholders involved is not important, it is absolutely fundamental (Achong, & Budrovich, 2011). Described in the multimedia program, “The Art of Effective Communication”, are the points of: communicating with members of your project team is one of the main responsibilities; and the way in which the message is delivered has significant implications on how the message will be received. Having been presented the same message in an e-mail, voicemail, and face to face, in the multimedia program “The Art of Effective Communication”, helps demonstrate the variation in how a message can be interpreted, and how the different delivery methods can elicit various emotional responses from the receiver. I received each message in the order they were presented. That is, e-mail, voicemail, and then face to face.
 

In reading the message in an e-mail, although the sender did acknowledge an appreciation at the end of the message, I didn’t care to have the sender refer to my report as “the missing report”. It was clear that the sender wanted the report as soon as possible. However, reading the word “missing”, was difficult to get past. My report was not “missing”, it had simply not yet been delivered to the sender. In that the message was delivered via e-mail, it was impossible for me to read it only once, and each time I did read it, “missing” jumped off the page even more!
 

Listening to the same message in a voicemail helped calm me down a bit. The sender of the message had a calm, soothing tone, and even though she used the word “missing”, it was not an emphasis. In fact, the message sounded like the sender was actually understanding of my own circumstances and workload. Again, it was clear the sender wanted the report from me as soon as possible, yet it sounded like she did not want to step on my toes and come across in a demanding manner. Rather, her tone indicated to me a kinder, gentler request, more along the lines of “When you can get to it, I’d really appreciate having the report so I can meet my own approaching deadline”.
 

Receiving the message via face to face delivery, it was clear the sender wanted my report now. However, the sender seemed to convey an indifference to my circumstance. It was almost as if she was bothered or being inconvenienced and I was the target. I think it was the tempo of her message and how her voice seemed a little lethargic. I had a little sense that she didn’t think I could or even would get the report to her soon. I particularly didn’t like it when she point her finger when saying “and your report…”. I Interpreted that portion as “and YOUR report …”. It might have been the partition she was standing behind, but I didn’t feel a connection in the sense of “we are working together on this”.

The greatest take away for me in this activity is about how a message is delivered. Communication is not just words, it is about the spirit, attitude, tone, and body language (Stolovitch, 2011). If the sender of the third message, delivered face to face, used the tone and tempo of the sender of the voicemail, I would likely have dropped everything and completed the report, even though it wasn’t due for another couple of days. It is not unusual for any of us to have an off-day, in general. If this off-day is a day when we are to be responsible for carrying out effective communications regarding a project, an extra level of awareness in how to communication would greatly benefit the outcome or result of the communication. I can’t merely say and/or write words and assume the message is correctly understood and interpreted. Regardless of whether or not I get along with the other members of our project team, I must be able to effectively carry out my duties along with the other members. With members of an instructional project team likely coming from a variety of background, disciplines, and levels of expertise, communication is critical (Lin, 2006). Mis-communicating and/or ineffectively communicating could become a seed, at a project’s beginning, that might grow and spread weeds throughout the course of the project! Once the clover, dandelions, and Bermuda grass begin to grow, it becomes rather difficult to remove!

Resources

Achong, T., & Budrovich, V. (2011). Practitioner voices: Strategies for working with stakeholders. Lecture presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5693702&Survey=1&47=7270808&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.

Lin, H. (2006). Instructional project management: An emerging professional practice for design and training programs. Workforce Education Forum, 33(2).

Stolovitch, H., (2011). Communicating with stakeholders. Lecture presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5693702&Survey=1&47=7270808&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.

The Art of Effective Communication. (2011). Multimedia program presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html.

Project “Post Mortem”

The project in question for this post is one of updating and modifying an existing degree program at a community college. I have been an intercollegiate basketball coach for many years. In this capacity, I had limited experience in curriculum development, and virtually no experience in project management (PM). Having been selected as our department representative to the college’s curriculum committee, I faced a steep learning curve. When our department agreed to proceed with making significant modifications to our particular degree, by default, I become a PM. At the time, I did not view the task through this perspective. Not only were there specific policies, procedures and criteria for curriculum development establish by our local college, the state has their own set of policies, procedures and guidelines with which to evaluate and ultimately approve or deny the proposed degree/curriculum modifications. Now, I really had my hands full!

Through the benefit of hindsight, and the past two weeks of beginning to learn about PM, I now have a clearer picture of where the overall project would have been more successful through the use of the PM concepts and models. While these PM tools were certainly not formally implemented, I can see where some aspects of the five life phases of a project, as identified by Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, and Kramer (2008), did contribute to the successful elements of the project. The five phases being: conceive; define; start; perform; and close.

The conception phase was well thought out, with the input of all department members and our department associate dean. The answer to both questions of, “Can and should the project be done” was yes. As such we were in a situation to proceed (Portny, et al., 2008). We had the necessary resources and the anticipated benefits were definitely worth the costs involved.

The next two phases of defining and developing the plan, and starting with forming a team were addressed in a very informal manner. This is where utilizing the PM process could have significantly benefitted this project. In particular, this project needed to have a clear and in-depth responsibility matrix developed. The roles and responsibilities of all team members should have been communicated (Portny et al., 2008). Greer (2010) additionally offers a clear responsibility/accountability matrix that identifies exactly who will be doing what in the project. In that this phase had little structure, there was a momentum leading into the start phase which continued to cause a detrimental impact. Responsibilities were not clearly defined or communicated.

With a huge variable in this projecting being the process and set of criteria required for curriculum development, at both our college as well as the state, assumptions made on my part as a PM existed, yet were not clearly formulated nor communicated. The project was unsuccessful in that it arrived at a road block when it reached the state level for authorization and approval. As the PM, if I were to have developed a statement of work (SOW), the research required for a comprehensive SOW would have identified some of these variables (assumptions, constraints, and risks) needing to be addressed, thereby circumventing the road blocks that ultimately arose when the project was sent to the state. These points coincide with the early “nuts and bolts” steps of project success outlined by Greer (2010). Loose nuts and bolts, result in unstable construction!

The aspects of the project coinciding with Portny et al’s. (2008) performance phase of projects was actually quite solid, in the early going. When any problem did arise, it was addressed with minimal effort and the project was able to proceed. It wasn’t until the end of the project came closer that the challenges which arose, pushed the project to a very slow crawl. Presently, it remains an open project, pending the acceptance and final approval of the most recent revisions.

In summary, I believe the project did not achieve the anticipated level of success for two primary reasons. The first being a lack of overall specific structure for the project. PM concepts and models would have provided a solutions. In offering an analogy, the foundation of the building we wished to build was not up to code! The second reason relates to not having identified the true scope of the project. Were this to have happened, the development of the project would have included the necessary elements needing to be addressed, specifically the depth of the project, with which the state would have accepted and approved the modifications of our degree program.

Lessons learned! (Why didn’t I take this course two years ago? Better late than never!)

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

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.

Project Management

Welcome to the continuation of this blog. As a student at Walden University, pursuing a degree in instructional design and technology, over the next eight weeks, I will be making future blog posts regarding the field of project management in education and training. Any and all comments will be greeted with an appreciation for other perspectives and contributions towards education in general, as well as my academic pursuits and continued learning.