…or how I learned to Finesse Language on Engineering Projects to get things done.
In a survey of communication problems across 34 Engineering and IT projects the following five categories accounted for practically all of the communication breakdowns and confusions that affected project delivery schedules or costs. Do any of these sound familiar from your experience?
- Assurances Problems
- Meanings of Goals Poorly Defined
- Hidden Information
- Micro Management / Under Feedback
- Why don’t they care like I do?
Over the next few posts we will look at each of these in reverse order, from least common to most, and suggest actions you can take to avoid these problems on your watch. Let’s start with the fifth most common behavior that creates business problems.
Number 5: Assurances given without understanding what they actually mean or entail.
This most often happens because the team or sales person, or executive feels they have to “look good” in order to “close” an agreement. This is the classic “over promising and then under delivering.”
Recommended Solution: When the other party hints there is going to be a challenge or that they are concerned about a particular problem, believe them!
Don’t claim to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Dig in and find out what they might know that you don’t. And don’t let egos pretend that you can solve issues that the other party has not been able to solve just to get the deal going.
I suppose that there is always hope you will be able to juggle more of the “devil in the details” than they could. You may be more skilled, knowledgeable, and able to deal with more stress so that you can “fake it till you make it,” but if you aren’t experienced enough to find out up front what those concerns are about in detail, then probably not.
Taking responsibility is a must. Without taking responsibility, we will never learn because we never admit that there is something to learn.
If you are the technical lead find a way to level with everybody and call out differences of understanding above the table. Refuse to take responsibility for a project if you are forced to pretend that you know something that you do not.
It is better to do what you have to do now than to get caught in the trap the comes from feigning understanding. People may argue with you now, but they will definitely remember your ineptitude if you don’t keep to your standards and things go South later.
Next time we will look at how to get everyone singing out of the same songbook when it comes to goals.
