Work, in Plain English

Feedback is central to collaboration. This is true for any size project, but truer and truer the bigger it gets.

No doubt, it’s a two-edged sword that can cut a project to pieces, fracturing its focus and gutting its spark.

Designers have been complaining for years about decision-makers who request outrageous changes at the worst possible moment, rather than taking the time to catch issues during the review process.

Still, we need feedback, and we often need feedback from people with wildly varying ideas about what it is we do and how we work. It’s up to you, not only to clarify your role, but also to reconsider it often, because it will change and evolve.

One way to do that, and make the most of all that review power, is with a Review Guide:

At each presentation, at each phase of the project, tell the review team what kind of feedback you need, and explain how honoring this will save time and resources. I predict this will never get old. Every time, at each phase, provide a list of exactly what is expected, and provide it in a checklist form. And every time, at each phase, inform the reviewers that skipping the items on this list is likely to result in delays and expense.

Keep in mind that this puts the onus of achieving ideal results squarely on you. If you neglect to include an important item on the checklist, or include it at the wrong phase, it becomes your responsibility.

That is, of course, if everyone completely honors the Guide.

I’ll be sharing more thoughts about how to create Review Guides in the weeks ahead, so if it sounds like a tool you can use, please stay tuned!

The plus side of committees is that everyone brings a different perspective, and different strengths, to the table. One of their infamous minuses—the bottleneck (sometimes known as pea soup or the black hole)—becomes exponentially aggravating for each person you add to the group (not to mention those that show up near the end of the project).

Here are a few tips to help you transform snags into synergy. They refer mostly to design, but have value for anyone moving a project through committee approval:

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#1:
Committee involvement is easier—and more productive—if the group reviews only a reasonable sampling of the project. Be on the lookout for issues that don’t really belong in the meeting room.

Recently, as we neared the end of a website design project, I realized I was unnecessarily prolonging the agony, not only for myself, but for everyone poring over the layouts. After taking a look at which pages were truly critical to business, I was able to halve the number of page templates I submitted for committee review, and free myself to put this baby to bed.

What’s a reasonable sampling? Just make sure you understand which parts of the project are critical. For example, on the current project, I know which pages are expected to generate the most revenue, and which involve external business partnerships. For those pages, I’ll need input from the individuals who intimately know the market, the numbers, and the nuances of the partnerships.

Of course, some participants may insist on seeing it all, but I wouldn’t even say, “Hey, we’re only going to show you a sampling.” That’s too tantalizing a whiff of the “forbidden” (it would be for me). Don’t bring it up.

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#2:
Cull again: Watch for issues that can slip in, especially as you get close to the end of the approval process. Do these really require executive involvement?

Present it as a positive: “The key issues are A, B and C. If you’re happy with these, we can call this phase done and move on to [next urgent project].” By the end of a long approval process, only the most dogged will really feel the need to “see it all”, and will understand that they’ve seen enough.

Committee Un-bottlenecking Tip#3:
Take the time to engage and empathize with the key detractors.

If there are too many hanging issues, meet directly with one key detractor at a time (maybe two), and be prepared to do some genuine listening (that’s different from caving, and even more different from manipulating). There’s a good chance they have concerns and perspectives that are easier to explain in a one-on-one meeting. Whether you fully agree or not, you’ll have a chance to find some common ground, and you’ll have an advocate at the next review. If you’re not sure how to do this, I highly recommend Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, also known as compassionate communication, an approach that’s been used by families, businesses and communities to work together to meet the needs of all concerned.

I’m not against working with committees, as long as they have essentially productive intentions (mostly free of power wars), and I get to be there in the room. Do everything you can to meet all the individuals deciding the fate of your work. If you are a designer working with corporations, this, too, is design. But be smart: Tap the business wisdom being made available to you and take the time to make sure they are reviewing only necessary items.

Listen, respond, get the sign-off, and get out!

This past week, I have been at both the giving and receiving ends of some very poor communication.

Dishing it out: I asked for backup support with a project, but neglected to mention a specific time the support would be needed. To make matters worse, no one had the mental bandwidth to reply with a clarifying question, so the email wasn’t answered until it was too late.

Being dished: After spending half a week on a project, all preliminaries were junked when the project owner mentioned requirements that should have been in the initial request.

We’re all busy. When we are the source of a request, it’s important that we either do the work of providing all key details, or clearly state what details are needed from the other person. When we’re the recipient of an unclear email, it’s up to us to ask for missing details, and to make sure we get them.

One tool I use is a quick checklist:

If you get the feeling a note (either that you’ve received or are about to send) is unclear, re-read it and jot down the questions that come to mind (they will). If you’re having trouble coming up with questions, give yourself a “who-what-where-when” kick-start: Does the message name all necessary names? Does it explain exactly what’s happening, or what’s needed? Do you need to know more about where or when? (Sure, you learned that years ago, but did you use it in your last memo?) Once you start a list like this, it’s surprisingly easy to know when you’re done.

And once you’ve jotted down those questions…

Are the questions for an email you’re sending? Answer what you can, and ask for help with the others.

Are the questions for an email you’ve received? Reply to the sender with a numbered or bulleted list of questions. Don’t glob the questions into a long paragraph, but break them out into easy-to-answer pieces.

And remember to be patient with yourself and others. We are all busy; Communication is one of those things that will never be perfect, and could always use a little improvement.

This article purposely leaves out the nuances of more complex communications, such as those that seek to inspire change or address organizational issues. If you’re looking beyond the simple project memo, see Ken Milloy’s thoughtfully assembled 11 Laws of Internal Communications.

“To love an idea is to love it a little more than one should.”

- Jean Rostand

I am helping a large corporate client organize their purchasing system for routine print orders.

Here are the questions I am asking:

1. What is the Old Guard used to? What do they LOVE and take pride in about the present system?
Usually, early systems in an organization are based on trust and feeling trustworthy. Why would I want to mess with that? These are the people who got us where we are today.

2. How and where can we open up better communication between the departments who use and request printing?
At the moment, the folks in Finance might request stationery just days after Marketing has received their delivery. In the world of printing, combined orders can save a whole lot of money, not to mention the frustration of discovering that big box of letterhead at the front desk isn’t for you!

Amid proliferating departments and quickly changing roles, we just need to improve the way we turn around to key users and say, “Need some, too?”

3. Where else are we wasting time, effort and money?
Stick real close to the order process (all the way through to delivery and storage of materials), and ask lots of dumb questions.

We set up an order log, and entered all routine print orders for the previous 18 months. We included quantities, requestor’s name, printer’s name, price and print specs. By breaking the order log into sections, we could see the history of each item (such as letterhead, envelopes and window envelopes) separately. This was a very simple, but powerful way to see trends emerge and anticipate future needs. The order log lives on the company’s Wiki site, so anyone can access the information at any time.

4. Who gets the price before the order, and who gets the bill after it is delivered? If it’s two different individuals, how do they compare notes?
For the person who ordered, it’s a matter of closure. For the one who gets the bill, the need is for context. By facilitating communication, we’ve restored accountability.

Remember, the pluses of the original system are an excellent place to look for new systems. Often, all we need to do is make it easier for people to do what they were already doing. Make adjustments for growth within that strong foundation.

There is a place for blame, particularly if it’s a place that’s visited briefly, on the way to somewhere else. The key is to remember that when we judge someone (or ourselves) for blaming, we’re not improving things.

More often than not, blame is a tiresome game we catch ourselves and others using to avoid responsibility. It’s not pretty, and most of us work hard to root it out. After all, blame is considered one of the greatest impediments to effecting change.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross included feelings of blame (along with anger) in her “Five Stages of Grief”. A critical part of her contribution was to make us aware that all the feelings that go along with extreme change are normal and acceptable. In fact, she originally presented her ideas as “the Five Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News”. That’s any catastrophic news: Even positive experiences can trigger some or all of the stages of grief if the change is significant and/or sudden.

The US Army has an interesting page on change management that uses Kubler-Ross’ model to help program managers deal with emotional responses to change. And the study of change management itself—from managing small, personal changes, to project changes, to massive organizational or societal changes—often looks to that same model as a way of addressing how human beings deal with change. In fact, there is an enlightening chart that not only illustrates the stages, but also serves as a simplified road map for navigating some of the sticky pitfalls (“Everybody’s furious: I’ve failed!”).

Consider the possibility that we may use blame as a handrail to pull ourselves out of even more debilitating feelings. If we keep reaching for the next handrails past blame, rather than stopping there, we’ve moved ourselves into more positive and productive states of mind. I haven’t seen the movie, The Secret, but I’ve read some of the Abraham Hicks material that sparked it, and there’s an awesome list of emotions, called the “Emotional Guidance Scale”. It climbs from the darkest, most helpless, to the grandest and most elevated feelings (well, actually, it starts at the positives and works down, but I tend to read it the other way around). He warns against attempting to pop from fear and hopelessness directly up to happiness and joy (have you watched anybody attempt to do this?), and suggests allowing even a few of the in-between steps.

Both Kubler-Ross’ model/chart and Hicks’ list are profound tools for seeing emotions—even “bad” ones, like blame—as part of a continuum. Remembering that it’s a continuum, a process, can help us deal with change, respond to negativity, and guide challenging projects through to great ends.

I am up to my ears lately because I have succeeded in attracting an abundance of dream clients: Creative, innovative, deeply thinking, open to possibility—Ayeee!!

The past two weeks have mostly been spent creating flowcharts, communicating, adjusting flowcharts and communicating some more. For once, I’ve been thankful for the boring little projects one can sweep together quickly, fold into a zip file, and Send.

Of course I love those dream clients.

That’s why I call them Dream Clients.

And as I had hoped, they’ve got me thinking. At the moment, I’m thinking about how to encourage all this creativity and innovation I’m deluged with, and still get the work done.

My key tool is what I call “mirroring”: I mirror the client’s ideas back to them, but in as organized a way as possible. Mostly, that involves a flowchart, a short list of project deliverables, and a rough list of tasks.

Unfortunately, all that accomplishes at the moment is a friendly letter thanking me for clarifying thoughts, and an inspired, stream-of-consciousness fountain of new ideas.

I’m convinced there is a way to encourage creative clients, but still finish projects and make a living. At the moment, however, there’s such an abundant flow of creative thought, I feel lifted off my feet, and the solid ground of specific, productive tasks.

Let’s trust that all is well, and let that creative flow do its thing for a bit. We’ll keep track of hours, and add emphasis (big, bold, red letters) to a note I included in a recent project estimate:

Planning, project management:
This includes charting the site, which I’ve already done, as well as correspondence, distilling meeting notes, creating and keeping to schedules, and confirming the best software resources for your requested features. Keep in mind that—particularly, but not only once we get going—changing feature requests means more time spent in this department!

Hm… should I say “more time and money”? What are the pros and cons of making that crystal clear, down-to-earth statement? It’s certainly costing me both time and money. But there is also something else I gain when I do a little flagrant, time-wasting Dreaming.

Thinking about jump-starting a living knowledgebase at work (or elsewhere)? Some readers like nice, long explanations. Most like that and a quick bottom-line read. Here are seven quick sparks for “Getting Your Hands on Wisdom”:

1. Look for and value chances for cross-departmental interaction
The more relaxed, the better.

2. Get yourself and your team out of the office regularly
Not just to the café — fresh air and (light) exercise works for grownups, too.

3. Relentlessly build trust
I found a whole bunch of excellent links on this subject while researching the Competition Myth (go figure)!

4. Find ways to temporarily forget the deadline
Bet you’re doing this already when you start checking your email. You can always set a timer if you’re worried you’ll never go back…

5. Find ways to at least temporarily suspend politics
Call it what it is, and if possible, poke a little fun at it.

6. Don’t forget the off-site folks, by any means available
Do they know everyone on the team? Do they know the go-to folks when you’re not around? Who has their IM address?

7. Wisdom-sharing works best when it’s fun
…otherwise, it’s stale and impotent. If you can’t figure out how to make it fun, lean on an expert!

We learn so much from challenging projects. As thinking beings, we take those lessons and apply them to the next project, as well as (hopefully) to other areas of our lives. How do we share what we’ve learned so that the information and experience is available when and where it’s needed?

Elizabeth over at A Girl’s Guide to Managing Projects gets us thinking about how important it is for lessons learned to be saved, remembered and transferred across department boundaries. She mused about a product that might do this, and improve project success rates.

My response: Is it a product? or a culture? or a combination of both…?

Making Wisdom-sharing Something We Do

Sharing knowledge and experience across project boundaries requires both the time and space to process those lessons. In most parts of the world that use the term “project management”, those resources are harder to come by.

It takes a disciplined and determined individual to carve out the time for themselves and for the team, and to create real value in a “post mortem” or “post-implementation review” (not to mention while the project is ongoing). We can hold the meetings, but what good is it if we just file our findings somewhere on the network?

Elizabeth posted once about a “Meeting room C” (quoting her twice!) — a cafe outside the office. While it’s important to keep in mind that public places require discretion, the bottom line is that this sort of atmosphere allows us to relax and bounce ideas and impressions off colleagues, and across departments. In settings like that, formal “lessons learned” have a chance to become internalized, to become wisdom, and to give rise to positive professional relationships. Those relationships become vast and pertinent assets that cannot be matched by anything written.

Whether or not it’s a cafe, the secret is simply getting out of the familiar office environment. Another ingredient is temporarily suspending the rush, allowing people to take the time they need to mull ideas and respond to them frankly. Of course, this also requires a little freedom from office politics, and a whole lot of trust— a topic worthy of its own post (or five, or six, or more).

What about Parisha in Porbandar? or Fran out in Fairbanks?

This hasn’t occurred to me before, which is funny, since I’ve been a long-distance player many times.

If off-site and long-distance team members can make it to an occasional meeting, that is ideal. If they can’t, it’s still important to involve them in wisdom-sharing.

There are many ways people learn. Beyond simply absorbing information, we can bring learning to life by taking the time to engage each other. Video conferencing is becoming more and more accessible, and instant messaging isn’t too shabby either. Sure, IM is missing the face-to-face ingredient, but there is lots of space in it for play and spontaneity.

Once again, it’s about reaching out, having a conversation, giving any and all team members the space to ponder, ask “stupid” questions, vent, brainstorm, and more.

Speaking of play, here’s that product you may be looking for:

Post-mortem: The Online Game

This little nugget is to be continued, but in the meantime here’s a dictionary.com definition for you to ponder:

wis·dom [wiz-duhm] –noun

5.	(initial capital letter) Douay Bible. Wisdom of Solomon.

American Psychological Association (APA):
wisdom. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved July 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wisdom

Chicago Manual Style (CMS):
wisdom. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wisdom (accessed: July 23, 2007).

Modern Language Association (MLA):
“wisdom.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 23 Jul. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wisdom>.

The original article (and associated comments) that sparked this post can be found here.

This Jeff Han video (see the first one I posted here) demonstrates more specific applications to show how the multi-touch interface is evolving. This presentation was part of Adobe’s TED2006. Han is a research scientist for NYU’s Media Research Lab, and the inventor of an “interface-free” touch-driven computer screen.