Communicating Effectively

How did your interpretation of the message change from one modality to the next?

In my opinion, my interpretation of the three different modalities were about the same. I did however feel that the email was somewhat too wordy. The tone of the voicemail seemed to have more urgency than the email because you could hear Jane's tone. Voicemail may not be the best choice seeing as how a lot people do not check their their messages. During the face to face, Jane's tone was different than the voicemail like it was less urgent. But on the other hand that was the fact that she was visibly standing in front of you conveying that the report that she has yet to receive is vital to her.

What factors influenced how you perceived the message?

The clear language and the tone.

Which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message?

I think that the face to face communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message for me because it forced me to stop, listen, and focus on what Jane had to say. I was presented with an audio and visual of the message so I was able to see and hear the message. To a certain degree I think that face to face communications holds people more accountable because then the other person can't say that they weren't told something or didn't know about it.

What are the implications of what you learned from this exercise for communicating effectively with members of a project team?

From this exercise, I learned that everyone has there preferred method of sending and receiving communication. In choosing the most appropriate form of communication depends on the audience and the message being delivered. Dr. Stolovich explained that effective communication is influenced by spirit & attitude, tone & body language, timing, and the personality of the recipient.

References

Media Program "The Art of Effective Communication"

Stolovich, H. [Video]. Communication with Stakeholders Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com.

Project Post Mortem

Ok... so I don't really have a real project that I can share with you all. But in our textbook Portny et at(2008) in chapter 1 talked about how baking a cake can be considered a project, since they defined projects as temporary endeavors that result in some type of product or service. So here goes...

The Conceive Phase
Last weekend my friend and I baked a carrot cake. I wouldn't necessarily say that the project was a failure, but one of the steps could have gone a little better. I guess I can be considered the project manager of "Project Cake". So as project manager and baker extraordinaire, I was approached by my friend (upper management) with "We're baking a carrot to take to Mo's for dinner on Sunday". Of course, I was caught off guard because it was random. But I went along with the idea anyway.

The Define and Start Phase

These phases were combine because it was just the two of us. The unknown of the project was the recipe. My friend had lost it the last time we made a carrot cake. The project was scheduled to start on Sunday and end that same Sunday before 6pm. There was no projected budget. As long as it was within reason. The stakeholders were me, my friend and Mo (the consumer). The An analysis of the resources (the ingredients) was done in the store. The defined tasks included going on line and finding another recipe, getting the ingredients from the store, and making the actual cake and baking it.

The Perform Phase
The tasks were actually further broken up and assigned in this phase. My responsibilities included finding the recipe and mixing the cake batter, and making the frosting. My friend was to grate the carrots and ice the cake. We both went to the store together. The the oven balked the cake. Now the issues:

• some of the cake decided it wanted to stay in the pan
• the frosting was a little too thin for the cake
• there wasn't enough batter for 2 9in pans
• we bought duplicate ingredients

The Close Phase

The cake was completed with in time and within the budget. The consumer (Mo) was happy. The cake turned out great despite the issues. In fact, I just had a piece an hour ago. It's even better now than it was on Sunday. All of the issues were solved but they were not anticipated. They were my fault (except the cake sticking to the pan. I greased and floured both pan thoroughly!) The frosting I could have whipped a little longer til I got the consistency that was suitable for the cake or the frosting could've been put in the fridge to chill. As far as the batter, the recipe I used called for a 9x13in pan. So I made another batch of batter and cut the recipe in half. The duplicate ingredients could've been prevented if my friend had written down what we had already instead of going by memory. For future references we decided to get the spray oil with the flour in it for the pans and add pineapple.

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