Communicating Effectively

It has always been the thing of communicating efficiently when preparing any project with perhaps different team members or an audience per say.  “The key to successful project management is effective communication—sharing the right messages with the right people in a timely manner” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 357).    This assignment will be used as a reflection of communication in a couple of different aspects.

I had a chance to view the multimedia program The Art of Effective Communication.  This program contains 3 modalities that were described as “email, voicemail, and face-to-face” (Laureate Education, n.d.).  Giving my analysis of the messages delivered will be briefly discussed in the ordered given. 

Email

The email was the first communication done by Jane to Mark.  She basically got down to the point of needing the data he had to include in her report before the deadline.  When you look the email, it can be misinterpreted.  For example, Jane says, “I know you have been busy and probably in that all day meeting” (Laureate Education, n.d.).  She can be misled as being sarcastic about him being busy and rushing him to finish his work so she can get hers in before deadline or she really could be having sympathy on how hard he works.  According to (Portny, et al., 2008), “communication can be formal or informal, written or verbal…however; project managers should plan and prepare so their messages are received and correctly interpreted by project audiences” (p. 367). 

Voicemail

The voicemail was conceived from the email of course, but Jane’s speaking tone was more of a formal and informational help cry to Mark.  The message was a more urgency approach to have him contact her back so she could get his ETA report so she wouldn’t miss that deadline she is highly concerned about.  But she appreciates his help if he can get back with her by phone or email the information her way. 

Face-to-face

When Jane conducted the face-to-face to Mark, I felt it as being a bit fictional to how she was using her body language.  She seemed to have approached him in an informal manner/way, basically jumping into what she needed more so before asking him if he busy working on his report. 

Throughout this message that was described in 3 different models, my interpretation of each modality change because of how the messages was seen, heard, and basically done.  The factors that were perceived from this message were Jane’s approach or way she was determined to get Mark’s report.  Factors can be way of writing the letter, tone in the voice, and gestures or body language perceived.  The form of communication I feel conveyed the true meaning of the message would have to be the email.  The email can be described as stating the purpose of her writing Mark, also telling why exactly she needed his help, and asking if he could help her complete her work.  The implications of my learning’s can be described according to (Portny, et al., 2008) thoughts of “through communication people exchange and share information with one another, and influence one another’s attitudes, behaviors, and understandings” (p. 357).

 

Reference

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.

 

Laureate Education, Inc. (n.d.) The Art of Effective Communication. [Video Webcast]. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html

Learning from a Project "Post-mortem"

We have to make sure to use the term Project in front of Post-mortem or you will drift into results of death per say, but when speaking of Project Post-mortem it refers to “taking stock at the end of a project…to review over mistakes or problems that have been learned” (Greer, 2010, p. 42).  For this assignment, we were asked to recollect a project that was worked on either personally or professionally that did not result in the best outcomes.  To understand my Project Post-mortem, I will use certain questions to analysis this professional recall aspect.

I can remember when I first started my journey in the online (asynchronous) learning environment for my first master’s.  Majority of my courses would always be divided into group project assignments.  I can not get into depth details, but I will describe how our group was divided into around 4 or 5 students.  We were working on developing a project that consists of a Curriculum & Instructional Plan.  At the beginning, the different parts were broken down for everyone to know what they were to work on.  Throughout each week, we were to report what we had started for the project.  Each week, if someone wasn’t dropping the course they were not contributing to their portions.  If they did contribute, it would be something that didn’t have anything to do with preparing the plan needed.  So before the project was due, one or two other group members and I would have to go back and try to fix and add information to other’s work.   So this would result in our project not being the best it could have been if all members would have done their own parts. 

Analyzed Questions from recall:

What contribute to the project’s success or failure?

The contribution to the project’s failure was that stakeholders or the members involved in the group did not always give their best work or none at all.  This problem brought about a strong frustration between us as a working group, especially when it came down to the grade of the entire project.  The contribution to the project’s success was that the most determined team member’s ability to get their portions done and still have some time to jump in to add ideas that were slacking on other ends.

What parts of the Project Management (PM) process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?

When working on a team with others, “project managers should approach changes of scope in a business-like fashion” (Greer, 2010, p. 35).  In my example we definitely tried to be calm about the situation and how it happened.  In the PM process, I feel “discussing the impact with the project team” (Greer, 2010, p. 36) using this tactic more throughout would have helped our project results.  We would try to communicate with the members that were slacking or just not contributing at all.  This required us to speak with the instructor who would basically inform us to still try to get it done with the two or three that were left off; but this project was designed for a bigger team, which changes had to be made to correspond to who were willing to work more so.

 

Reference

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your

projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Setting up EDUC 6145

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Of course most of you have been following my blog for quite sometime, but if you haven't I'm Shiketha.  I'm refreshing somethings for the Project Management course.  If you are not subscribed or following my blog to hear my opionions or caught up on insight to this course, feel free to do so.  Have questions or comments you may want to ask of me concerning my blog feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can if I have an answer to your concern.  Also, if I'm not following you, I will most certainly begin!