The Book: The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox
PM Knowledge Area: Communications
Media: Click here to view a 3-minute video from the author, John Freeman.
Many of us are accustomed to ready business- or project-focused books and literature, things that are focused on our profession and the application of immediately actionable knowledge and tools. That’s good. But sometimes it’s helpful step a little past that and read something that’s still applicable to our profession, but wasn’t necessarily targeted at us. Tyranny of E-mail
Summary
Freeman presents an interesting history of how we got to where we are now in communication, the social changes that happen upon major changes, such as the introduction of the postal service, then of the typewriter, and so on until email.
Effective communication is a an applicable knowledge area of Project Managers. In that vein, here are some of the PM-related take-aways from Tyranny
- That feeling of being overwhelmed with correspondence? Not new. We faced the same thing with early publishing booms and with the explosive growth in correspondence brought on by the postal service and the typewriter.
- Calls for simplification and refinement in correspondence began decades ago, long before email.
- There are better ways to communicate.
Email has become the default and only communication channel for many people. But that doesn’t mean we’re communicating well. In fact, a lot of what you think is really important is being lost in the flood of email. Want your message to get through? Find a better way.
That better way may mean either a different communication channel or it may mean improving how you author and send email messages. It probably means some of both.
Freeman argues for reintroducing alternate communication channels and even slower communication channels. Pick up the phone instead of sending an email. Walk down the hall. Meet for lunch. Or handwrite a note. There are also some good ideas out there for improving how you author and send email. I’ll explore those ideas in a future review.
Project Communication
While Freeman’s ideas address a larger societal problem, many of his ideas should be considered by project managers who seek to improve project communication.
- Pick the right communication channel. Don’t depend too heavily on email. Use the phone and face-to-face communication. This is especially true when trying to solicit buy-in and commitment, during planning, and for doc review. Don’t just send it out for review. “Silence is consent” simply won’t work for you in project management.
- Know how your stakeholders prefer to receive communication. If they’re over-burdened by email, find out how they prefer communication. Brief email? Summary email with details attached? Phone calls? Meetings? Singing telegram?
- Communicate enough. But what’s “enough?” Some of us communicate too little, and some of us too much. Most of us probably communicate some things too much and some things too little. We may not communicate enough during planning to be sure that problem definition is really understood and committed, then we may totally over-communicate with way-too-long status reports. Pay attention. Ask questions. Be observant.
Recommendations
Figuring out how to communicate effectively is important for all projects. In Cottage PM, where there may be no norms or expectations about how projects are planned and controlled, or how progress and results communicated, then you’re even more at risk of making wrong assumptions.
There is no magic bullet. Pay attention. Ask questions. Be observant. The right communication will get the right kinds of responses. When you figure it out for your organization and project team, be sure to capture it in “lessons learned” and include it in the communication plans for future projects.
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