As a project manager, one of the things I enjoy most is the interaction with people - working with project team members, getting to know the people behind the “worker”, enjoying the humor, the peculiarities and even the traits that can make someone challenging to work with. However, something has been puzzling me for years now – why are some people scared of the telephone? Or are they scared of people? Or if not people, what are they scared of?

I first noticed this behavior (I call it “scary phone syndrome”) when I managed a project with the development team being in Germany and the systems analysts locally in Cape Town. We had tight deadlines and each analyst had to work with one or two developers in Germany to explain systems requirements, perform testing, sorting out defects. When tasks started to slip, I regularly received the excuse “I emailed So-and-So yesterday but he has not responded”. My regular response was – “Perhaps So-and-So never received the email, why don’t you phone”?

I must have repeated my “don’t rely on email, phone!” mantra hundreds of times over the years. And still I encounter people on projects and outside the project space who somehow think email is the one and only communication tool and once you’ve sent your mail, you have shifted responsibility onto the recipient. My goodness, what would you have done in the era before email? Send a memo? We used to talk to one another!

The PMBOK and other project management material describe communication channels and the appropriate use of each very well and I don’t want to repeat theory here. But I’d like to challenge project managers, project team members and anybody responsible for delivering work to consider other communication tools before simply resorting to email. Email is great, don’t get me wrong, but when something warrants a conversation or if the communication is urgent, rather phone or at least follow up your email with a call.

And if you suffer from the “scary phone syndrome” then the good news is that we have great tools like instant messaging. My Skype address is mj.fick and on Live Messenger you can use my email address mj.fick[@]petanque-c.com. Feel free to “chat” and let me know if you have other cures for this nasty disease. :)

A week ago I decided that I was tired of staring at the same furniture in the same position in our living room. So, clever as I am, I decided to round up all the resources I could find (Dad and siblings) to move some items around to create the illusion that we bought new furniture. I conveyed the new layout verbally to my ‘reluctant volunteers’ and after many minutes, finally convinced them.

About 15 minutes into ‘the big move’, my siblings and I realised that this new layout was a designer’s nightmare. We (read ‘I’), neglected the very first step of any project: planning.

Instead of designing the room on paper I decided that my head was good enough. Instead of listing all the design dilemmas (project risks) and ways to mitigate them, I decided to deal with them as they came along.

I’m the first to admit that planning isn’t fun, but it is a necessity. And unfortunately, even in business this is the first phase where we attempt to cut corners. If nothing else, just remember this: “Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” (Tom Landry).

By Jeanne Fredericks