Saturday, February 20, 2010

Project success i= 80% expectation management and 20% delivery

I have seen enough project stories to see that inability to manage expectations internally or with the customer results in project failure.  However since all project failures can be reduced to inabilty to deliver on time or with quality or meeting the scope or within budget (typically a combination), they look like they are always delivery failures.

So how do we attack expectation management part?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

When to write email and when to talk?

This is an important distinction that I notice many employees do not consciously make. Often the choices are influenced by convenience not keeping in mind what would be most effective to deliver the outcome.

When to write an email --> Only when you are conveying pure logic or facts

When to pick up the phone --> when you you are conveying emotions or anticipate an emotional response from the other side.

I have seen many emotional emails that make poor reading and I have also been in calls where logic is intimately explained. Logic explained on the phone cannot be traversed back and forth and hence is difficult to grasp on the phone.

the above approach has worked for me and hope it does for you as well.