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Mediate with LH, LLC
Communications
Earlier this month (Nov.2010) I was asked to, and did, deliver a short presentation on communicating with end users or clients. The audience was Project Mangers involved in construction projects in the pharmaceutical industry. One of the first things discussed was a definition of customer service and to ask whether the audience had something to add. The definition I used was pretty standard and ran along the lines of and acknowledgment by the client that what has been delivered was in fact what was agreed upon. Then, there was a question whether or not everyone agreed this definition was correct? After a long moment of silence the audience was asked, how many were dependent on “repeat” business? Almost everyone responded with a raised hand. A suggestion was made that perhaps what we really want to do is to “exceed” what was agreed upon. So, one issue raised by the example is whether our communications with end users or clients is linked to achieving this end – doing a little bit more than expected and whether when we do so do we get an acknowledgement by a client this is so. As a result this launches us into a realm of communicating in a way that goes beyond the mechanistic adherence to the requirements of “contracts”. On the client side it also kind of starts to raise issues about “fairness”. And, finally it brings up a state of a relationship tied into “trust”. So, this led into an attempt to not only define “trust” but how to put it into a context of “project teams” – which are a commonly used temporary organization– joining owner, consultant, and contractor into a relationship – through which construction projects are designed and built?
Communicating with “end users” in construction is terribly interesting because, for one reason, during the “life” of a project - everyone is an end user. Just think about it – in the initial stages designers are users of information being supplied by the “stakeholders” in owners organization – in building a factory the operations area is a stakeholder – for a lab it is the quality or research department. They have to provide a clear statement and expectations they want a designer to convert from words into an image about what it’s going to be and what a building will contain and how it will work. A contractor is an end user of designers documents or models – and finally owner is the client and long term users of the building and it’s contents. So understanding how each works and communicates is critical to success. One potential irony of the communications challenge is that project success is most often equated with successful communications during the planning stage of a project so understanding how to communicate with designers and planners takes on criticality. Correspondingly there are communications processes which apply to this complex area of human interaction.
Within the organization I belong to - ISPE - we’re in the process of writing a guide for Project Mangers in our industry and in the people section we are attempting to identify areas for consideration when communicating. We’re also in the process of capturing communications considerations that apply in dealings with contractors and finally between consultants, contractors, and owners.
Our whole premise is to structure communications around the notion of customer satisfaction. Of course success is measured firstly by competence and results – built into those two a priori items are critical elements of communications. However, one cannot exclude trust – what is it – how to establish it – how to nurture and grow it – cautiously, as no one wants to be exploited or taken advantage of - enhancing communications and increasing the probability towards success.
Studying, understanding, and enhancing communications gives us an edge – so far as we know – other of our living travelers on earth cannot leverage or abuse!
