There is a well-known apocryphal tale from World War I of a message being sent back up the command chain - starting as "send reinforcements, were going to advance" the message finished ridiculously as "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance". It couldn't really happen could it?
Well actually, a battle-hardened CIO around these parts likens this to the communication gap between many IT functions and their business communities. And communications failures do actually top the list of reasons for IT projects failure, according to poll results from the Computing Technology Industry Association, as reported in Information Week.
The solution is simple - make sure everybody on the team - management, users, information architects, software engineers - make sure everybody understands WHY, and make sure they have the same WHY. If this can be achieved then a big part of the problem is overcome. Then it's simply a question of understanding exactly WHAT, and exactly HOW. If these simple but powerful questions can be answered, and if they can be seen to be answered, then it's almost impossible for there to be a communication problem. How good would that be?...
man you are right, a communication failure is really an understanding failure.
Funny thing, the US Army did not like me asking 'why' when I was a private. Is it any wonder why they have communication problems?
Posted by: alan hill | July 29, 2009 at 02:27 AM