Ever seen an ambitious project manager with a 1000 line project plan. Everything in planned to the n’th degree with dependencies, milestones and all the good things Microsoft project can do.

Fantastic, right?

Wrong! How can he communicate what he needs done to his client, his manager, his technical team with this 1000 line plan.

What you need to do is create a one page project plan that shows the key tasks, key milestones and most importantly the dates. This will allow anybody to pick up the plan and see who’s doing what and when. It prevents confusion as the user tries to trawl through the 100’s of lines to find his one task.

Most office applications can do this including MS Office and MS Powerpoint. Have a look in the templates section to find some examples

http://www.ganttgreen.com/Edinburgh_project_management_templates.html

This should be the Project Manager’s watch word. It stands for

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!

One of the biggest failings in projects is scope creep and making things too complicated. The client, the techy and even the project manager can get over excited during the project and costs, scope and timelines can all start creeping.

To prevent the project growing arms and legs, the project manager should have the mantra “Keep it Simple stupid” playing in the back of his mind at all times. This will keep the project simple by focusing on what the real requirements are and not what the client or the techy would like to do.

When any challenge or opportunity is encountered, ask the questions:

- What are you trying to achieve
- What are the options to achieve this
- What is simplest option
- Is there any risk

Once you have this information, you will know what the simplest option is to implement and any associated risk.

Remember, you will be praised for delivering a project on time and to cost not that it has bells and whistles.

The guru’s of NLP (Nuero linguistic programming) believe that people have 4 syles.

- Auditory
- Visual
- Kinestitic (feeling)
- Thought

When communicating with people, you can use some subtle NLP techniques to influence and put forward your ideas and therefore communicate effectively.

HOW?

Firstly, reflect on the words the person is using.  Listen to what they say or see what they are writing. You should then be able to put them into the following categories

- Auditory

I hear what you’re saying, that sounds like a good idea,

- Visual

I can see that is a good idea, that looks like a good idea, draw me a picture

- Kinestitic (touch)

I feel that we should move this forward,  let’s touch base
- Thought

I think that is good idea; let’s cogutate on that matter, on reflection…

Now that you know what style the person prefers, adapt your style of communication to them.

If they are visual, draw a picture and use visual words so they can picture your idea; if they are auditory, give them a phone and talk to them and discuss ; if they are thought person, then think about the words you use so they can understand your thought process; if they are kinaestic, then emphasize with their feelings

Of course, people maybe a mix of these things and with practice, adapting your language will become second nature.

By mirroring their words and styles, you will build a stronger rapport with the people you are communicating with and you will be able to influence and communicate more effectively.

Have you ever had an e-mail and thought “what is this all about?”

Today, people are too reliant on e-mail / instant messenger as their primary form of communication and it’s all too easy for a written message to be mis-understood and the wrong response recieved which leads to frustration on either side and wasted time.

How can you stop this happening?

- Think about what you are trying to communicate?
- Who is your audience?
- How else could you communicate it?
- Is your grammar and spelling correct?

To ensure your message is understood, the way you phrase and style your e-mail is very important. Take five minutes now to have a look at your e-mails and review the different variations. Some people write bullet points, others write long and verbose paragraphs, others can be direct whilst others vague.

Once you understand how your audience likes to be communicated, simply copy their style! I used to communicate to one of my bosses in bullet points. I thought he was busy and needed to know just the facts. However, he wrote long e-mails detailing the history of an issue, key items and appropriate actions with due dates and owners. I was getting frustrated as he would always ask for further clarification and spent a lot of time communicating with him.

I then realised that by changing my style I could achieve this with one e-mail. My style went from

Boss,

See below regarding an issue on the Unix project:

• Issue: Unix Server requires to be in DMZ zone to communicate to external clients.
• Actions: Open up firewall ports
• Owners: Network team
• Dates: End of July

Can you approve?

To:

Dear Boss,

In July, I requested the IT team to implement a Unix server into the data centre. The scope changed during the configuration of the server and it was found that it is now needed to be in the DMZ zone to allow it to communicate with external clients.  I have agreed that the firewall team will open up the appropriate ports to allow this to communicate to the clients by the end of July. Can you confirm this is OK?

Funnily enough, my boss now understands my e-mails with much better clarity and approved the e-mail with an “approved” e-mail.

Try it!

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