Why Bother Looking At Social Media For Use In Projects
29. Apr, 2009 
12 Comments
If you have no problems in your projects what so ever, consider yourself very lucky and please, keep on doing what you are doing.
Project components – methods, processes, procedures, tools – should only be introduced when they either reduce a risk or create an opportunity. Always.
If you have communication problems in your project and you are located in the same building, consider yourself lucky and please, train your communication skills. Simple techniques, we all know for decades, can improve your face-to-face communication immensely.
But what if we move all our interactions into cyberspace? What if we throw out physical collocation and what if everyone of us has an entire different frame of reference?
And now you run into problems.
Words just form 7% of our communication, the rest is 38% tone of voice and 55% body language, so the “standard” communication is not going to cut it.
I am not saying that we should move all our interactions into cyberspace. I am just saying that we are moving them online. It is happening. Resistance is futile
Managing projects will be different. Not in the trivial sense of sharing files and collaboration. The Project Management style, and the supporting tools have to be “social”, and now more than ever.
The project landscape is turning mobile, multi-cultural, 24×7, highly distributed and in ever flux. This situation will increase the risk of three social booby traps:
- Misunderstanding: increased difficulty for a proper understanding of what other stakeholders need in the project;
- Lack of Trust: reluctant to let go of control and trust the people do what they are supposed to do;
- Isolation: no sense of belonging to the project through geographical, cultural and time zone differences.
For Project Management in this context the real challenge will be a social one. This is exactly the place where I think Social Media will bring us insights and support. But not in collaboration alone, but more in how software can build a sense of community, enhance trust and stimulate open communication. Social Media might be the project component to reduce these risks.
Social media is build around the concept of having online conversations; engaging human to human interaction in cyberspace. When you view a project as nothing more than social interactions and we move all interactions into the virtual space, it should not be hard to imagine why I think we should bother looking at social media for support.
But being global and virtual is not only about risks. It is also about opportunities:
“It is about reducing urbanization and its heavy toll on the environment (no commute is no pollute).
It is about a more healthy (sustainable) distribution of wealth.
It is about improving education in general.
It is about The Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.”
Social media can reduce risks and create opportunities at the same time.
Not always.
Not for every project.
But increasingly more often.
This is a great post!
I’ve seen for myself over the past year or so how valuable using social media tools can be for project management.
Just the basics of tracking the discussion and vital details online is a huge time saver and safety net.
I sleep better at night knowing that all the important details can be found online, and nowone has to go digging through (gasp!) notebooks or email folders to find the answer to a critical question.
I’m currently using both Liquid Planner and Basecamp for my project management and am very happy with both. I smile knowing that the days of MS Project are behind me and I can use tools that really allow for true collaboration among project teams. And with the new features that LiquidPlanner is integrating, I predict LP very soon becoming one of the leading web based project management tools.
Curious to hear what tools other people use and if/how they integrate social media?
Social communications should not replace status communications. If you ask me how I am, I’ll tell you how “I” am. “I” am not my project. I can be awful while the project is fine. So if you want to know how the project is, request a status report.
Hi Dina, thanks for the comment. I think the fact that conversations are “stored” and can be referenced later on are indeed very important. I read somewhere that because of such a “permanent” footprint virtual workers seem more present in teams than non-virtual ones, just because virtually the interaction is stored.
Hi David, that is a good and important addition. Because social media facilitates the “conversation” doesn’t mean the topic of these conversation are about the people themselves.
However, social media is putting more emphasis on the people telling the story, putting them more in the foreground. It is not only about the status update, but also about “trusting” the source.
Interesting insights on social media seeping into our way of life.
It definitely has more positives than negatives.
Cool visuals!
Excellent post and approach. I presume here that everyone is aware of the different between the project management tools and social media collaboration. Both serve the purpose in sense of virtual, message conveying, status updating etc.
The main difference in my views here is that the professional world has no started feeling that very strict formal atmosphere or culture asking for high level of discipline does no extra good. The difference is here – in using social media platform – to give it a lose end – to enjoy in work culture, to post something other than business, to share, to collaborate, to enjoy. Definitely social media platform has a niche.
I don’t think we can use the 7% rule for complex or technical communications. We need a new study for this type of communications. It’s clear that while face to face is best for communicating feelings or emotions, I’m sure that pictures/drawings, graphs, charts and other means of delivering technical or complex information (including words) become a very large component in the transfer. The 7% rule probably fits the delivery of the sender’s belief or confidence in the value of the information being transmitted, but does not necessarily apply to the actual information itself. So your comments about trust are very valid. Personally, I do not rely on social media sites (e.g. facebook or twitter) to transfer project data, but I do use a similar framework through a shared workspace or blog devoted to the project. Most of my project information is not meant to be available to the general public, but should be available to stakeholders via controlled access to the data.
Let me modify my comments on the 7% communications rule. For feedback, it’s right on the money. Since the feedback should convey whether or not the original transmission was received & understood, Mehrabian’s study could apply in so far as the sender of the original message can read the feelings of the recipient to gauge the level of understanding on the recipient’s part.
Hi Ray, thanks for your time and effort to clarify this point. And I am even sure that this item is even changing as we speak.
The research is from way back, and the current generations are more and more effective in communicating without the voice/body language. It will not go away, it will even be very important, but the percentages might be different in a couple of years.
Hello Bas,
My name is Chauncey Hollingsworth and I’m a contributor for PM Network
magazine, a publication of PMI, the Project Management Institute, the
largest non-profit project management trade organization in the world.
I’m writing an article about how project managers are utilizing social media
platforms to facilitate better projects and I thought I’d start at the top.
Do you have time for a quick interview?
I’m on a rather tight deadline so thanks in advance for getting back to me!
chauncey@zephyrsyndicate.com
Hi Bas,
This is an influent post. It reveals the challenges of change that accompanies the shift from direct contact to contacts via the cyberspace. Truly, the tone of voice becomes less important, but the tone of words becomes significant. A change brings about more changes. The move to cyberspace brings the changes in the communication mode, the need to build trust and the necessity to select some “emotional” words so that people feel comfortable. Creativity in finding new ways to build trust is another challenge. The rippling effect or the Domino Effect is there. Your excellent post highlights these points ably. Thank you for such a thought-provoking post.
Your post excited me to the extent that I misspelled my name from Anani to Anan!
Thank you, Bas for this “healthy” confusion