How many of you remember The Brady Bunch? Do you remember the episode where Greg, the oldest son, tried to avoid getting in trouble from his parents by stating, “those were your exact words”? He knew what his parents originally meant but he was trying to avoid getting into trouble by pointing out that he actually had ‘literally’ followed their directive. His parents weren’t happy…but they had to agree that he had, indeed, literally followed their directions. Of course, it all backfired on him later when they turned the tables and made him follow his exact words…and everyone learned a fun lesson about manipulation.
How many times have you had to be a good listener, understand and interpret directives on a project? Of course, we want to make assignments and give direction with the clearest commands possible. When making assignments to project team members project managers should try to leave as little to the imagination as possible because the last thing you want is a project team member to head off with a task to perform who doesn’t have a clear or correct understanding of the task at hand. We all know this can lead to disaster – or at the very least some lost time and dollars on the project.
How many times have you had to be a good listener, understand and interpret directives on a project? Of course, we want to make assignments and give direction with the clearest commands possible. When making assignments to project team members project managers should try to leave as little to the imagination as possible because the last thing you want is a project team member to head off with a task to perform who doesn’t have a clear or correct understanding of the task at hand. We all know this can lead to disaster – or at the very least some lost time and dollars on the project.
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