Mapping Internal Communications 49
Patrick_Keogh writes "This article in The Economist discusses some research work from the Helsinki Institute of Physics which confirms what Scott Adams knew, and a lot of us suspected, that nobody talks to their boss. The research uses some novel mapping and visualisation techniques to map the communication interactions within a large engineering organisation." It's an interesting idea, but I would guess that it can't capture verbal communications very well, and that seems like a major flaw.
tracking e-mail skews results toward islands (Score:5)
I assert that analysis of a dataset that results from the tracking of communication by e-mail (exclusively) will preferentially give you the "islands" of small engineering groups in the map of communication flow.
When an engineer has a question for someone in his group, the question is usually a short one with a short answer. Furthermore, both engineers will have the necessary context for the question and the answer already, and therefore will not require lots of conversation to establish the context. If the engineers are not in the same room at the time that the question arises, this is the ideal scenario for a quick e-mail exchange (e.g., Q:"Is the default level for GOBHP high or low?" A: "low")
However, if you have a question for someone outside of your group, you probably need to spend a little (or a lot) more time and effort establishing context. Also, you might need to do a little more personal introduction (e.g., "Sorry to bother you, but I work in the XYZ engineering group and we're using your ABC tool to do..."). This is the kind of situation in which people tend to get up from their chairs, walk across the building, and sit down for a ten-minute chat with a fellow employee.
Even beyond missing verbal communication like this, tracking e-mail misses the importance of technical documentation. The study did mention that it tracked what files people downloaded, but I doubt that this really captured the flow of technical documentation, since much information is _still_ exchanged in paper form (gak!).
I am a technical writer for a medium-sized chip manufacturer. I am subscribed to virtually every company-internal technical mailing list. I spend weeks or months in face-to-face (and face-to-whiteboard) conversations with engineers in one group so that I can put as much information as possible into a document that is then made available to the entire company. If I do my job right, then I am acting as a narrow but very-high-singl-to-noise-ratio bridge between the islands of engineering groups. I don't see the Finnish study as capturing this quality of information exchange.
Finally, meetings --- both between boss and subordinate and between larger numbers of engineering peers --- can be opportunities for a huge flow of information between these islands. (Yes, meetings can also be black holes from which no useful work can emerge, but that only seems to be the case around here when one of the non-engineering executives is involved).
In short, I think the Finnish study misrepresents the real situation. At least in my company, we have a pretty open flow of communication between (not just within) engineering groups.
Re:tracking e-mail skews results toward islands (Score:1)
That is so true. I email my immediate teammates all the time (though we talk a lot too). But if I need to work with someone off my team, I almost always go see them. I might email to let them know I'm coming, but no more.
Of course, I work at the most undermanaged company in the world. Our engineering managers are engineers too. (Though my boss jokes that he's mostly just a PowerPoint engineer these days.)
We communicated daily (Score:3)
What I think it comes down to is mutual respect. He respects that I am the bit biting techy, while I respect that he is business minded part of the equation.
I think we have a pretty open work relationship, and thus I don't feel that he is the enemy when I have a problem. We simply talk about it, and decide what has to be done to resolve it. If it is a technical problem, he ensures that I have all the tools that I need. If it is a business problem, I make sure to try and give him all the raw data that he needs to prove the issue.
All and all a pretty healthly working relationship.
A link (Score:1)
If you haven't read anyhting about the Snafu Principle check out: An Illustration of the Snafu Principle [freedom.org]
Re:Vlad the Impaler (Score:1)
Vlad is like Doctor Doom. In his homeland, a righteous leader, committed to the wellbeing of his subjects. To the rest of the world, a megalomaniacal super-villain.
Seriously, though, Vlad is a balkan hero: It doesn't matter at all how cruel and unusual you are, so long as you're out there avenging the centuries-old relvolving blood debt your ancestral enemies owe you. In fact, the more cruel and unusual, the better.
Re:It's the SNAFU principle (Score:2)
To those who're not familiar with the SNAFU Principle, it predicts that communication between 'unequal' individuals will be distorted (the disinformation matrix) as a consequence of the different levels of authority. For instance, your communication, as a driver, with the policeman outside your car tends to be affected by your awareness of the policeman's power over you.
What would be interesting is software like this could be applied to the mailing lists and CVS of a free software project. Does the SNAFU Principle apply to individuals whose authority is acquired voluntarily, by reputation as a wizard hacker, or only to managers that programmers work for?
Related to the SNAFU Principle is the Vlad Paradox, also described by RAW in his novel Schrodinger's Cat. Two monks, escaping from the rain, take refuge in the castle of Vlad the Impaler. Vlad asks them what the people thought of him, and one of the monks died. One monk had said that people detested him as a psychotic mass murderer; maybe he died for telling Vlad the awful truth. The other monk had said that people loved him as a fine leader of the community; maybe Vlad killed him out of righteous irony. As the story goes, we don't know which monk Vlad killed.
So, what would you tell Vlad?
Organizational Impedance (Score:1)
The article reminds me of a discussion I had a few months ago with a manager that led me to partially develop the following (humorous) idea during my commute home:
The idiocy of a group is not constant. Representing the number of members as N, the collective idiocy of the group G can be calculated thus I(G sub N) = N^(N-1) where N>=1. Compare this to the number of paths in a complete graph of nodes N, f(N) = N(N-1) / 2. The latter is frequently used to demonstrate that it is not possible for all individuals in an organization to have perfect communication with all the others when N increases since, despite it being provable that an information path exists from any node to any other, the communication is not itself perfect. (It should also be noted that there are potentially an infinite number of ineffective path within an organization and this, too should be explored) This imperfection of communication, I argue, is the idiocy (or impedance) of the organization. Indeed, even in a group consisting of a single member communication is not possible because idiocy is not zero. This is stated in the first rule, In any group there is always a non-zero amount of idiocy (or colloquially: in any group there is always one idiot, this being doubly true when there is a group of one). It has also been observed that this idiocy is not evenly distributed across an organization, that is that each path has its own, non-zero amount of idiocy, equal or less than the organizational total.
Okay. Anyone want to finish?
Communications in Business? It can happen! (Score:2)
Sadly, I think a lot of small companies have very cohesive communications models and work very efficiently because of it...however, greed belies expansion. The second you move in a manager whose job is management, you kill the process -- at least, with self-managing tasks like deadline programming. The moral: stay small, and stay productive. Get big, and you'll pay more for less, including the outrageous salary of your "managers."
This is not such a bad idea!!!!! (Score:2)
Consider a node as a receiver, a processing unit, and zero or more transmitters. In any communications system there is always a chance of error, and there are methods of calculating error rates. This leads to the impedance concept.
If i ever get some spare time I will drop something like this into a modeling system and see if consistent results pop out.
Re:When I was boss, I used ONLY verbal (Score:1)
I don't think it is a linear relation - you might just "live on the room on the other side of the corridor" and rarely speak with your manager.
I guess that being in the same room as your manager probably helps a lot, beyond that the probability of speaking with him/her falls down a lot.
"communication" misinterpreted (Score:1)
Re:loser nerd approach (Score:2)
This is defenetely not just a 'nerd' problem, it is the way society works.
Another flaw (Score:3)
Just an excuse (Score:1)
After a few weeks, this will go the way of all the other communication tools they bought, and managers will begin looking for the next "greatest thing." Meanwhile, nothing will ever change in manager/employee relationships.
Corporate culture matters (Score:3)
For example, some managers get into a statified way of looking at things. This is called mushroom management. As in, "keep the mushrooms in the dark, and watch them grow".
You also have this in various comments such as "Time to stir the pot and watch the vegetables go around in circles"
Obviously, the attitudes develop into "Us vs Them"(tm) philosophies.
I would tend to believe that actual communication would be fairly low in situations like that. What passes for communication might be no more than the usual grunting that serves to designate who is the alpha male.
Real communication may not have taken place, just posturing and noises. This would show up in charts as described in the article.
This reminds me (Score:1)
As it turned out, no one really cared, because management was to busy (daytrading, backstabing, asskissing, and empire building) to care about how thing were really (not) working.
Business as usual.
When I was boss, I used ONLY verbal (Score:4)
There was no grand scheme, I just liked talking to them (and they to me, I think). Oh sure, every once in a while I'd send an email--if they weren't in that day and I didn't want to forget the question or whatever. But mainly I just stood up and walked over there to find out what was going on.
The informality allows you to learn a LOT more. Facial expressions and body language are often a more accurate report of the actual status. Plus the person (and the people in the nearby area) will bring up other topics that you also need to know about. Furthermore, the conversations were audible to the other programmers, so THEY got an update as well--making us a more close knit team. (the noise/distraction factor wasn't important in this situation).
As a contrasting example, we programmers were almost entirely isolated from the rest of IS/IT, making our interaction with THEM very weak.
So I propose a small refinement to the model: I imagine their "communications" already include email, telephone and scheduled meetings. Now add a factor that measures physical distance to calculate the probability that the boss and employee talk face to face. If the distance is only a few meters, add a bunch of "face time" to the communication list. If the distance is thousands of feet (or more) add little if any "face time".
--
MailOne [openone.com]
*YAWN* (Score:2)
I was the same way (Score:1)
"Great job, but you are too much of a smartass, and your customers don't like you."
"Well, you weren't a smartass, but I think you did a shitty job, so maybe you can have a raise next year"
I am reminded of a line from 'Office Space' - "I just don't want to be hassled by my boss" (it didn't go like that, but if you saw the movie, you know what i'm talking about). I simply didn't talk to my boss out of efficiency, it enabled me to get so much more done when I didn't have him being a PHB all the damn time. But that seems to be the way of working for Ma Bell; paid as underlings, treated as such.
Re:It's the SNAFU principle (Score:1)
Re:It's the SNAFU principle (Score:2)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Talk to your boss? (Score:2)
And, to round it all off, some quotes from my favorite movie; just think "manager" instead of "guidance counselor". Apologies in advance to any clueful managers out there; you're an incredibly tiny, underappreciated minority.
"my true pure refined hatred is reserved for guidance counselors."
"Guidance councelors! If they knew anything about career moves would they have ended up as guidance counselors?"
"I say down with all guidance counselors, make them work for a living."
-- Pump Up The Volume
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:tracking e-mail skews results toward islands (Score:2)
Agreed, I find it unsurprising that Bosses are isolated in small electronic islands. The mark of a good boss (to me and the management literature that I have seen) is one that impresses humanity on his/her employees.
Despite the horror with which many view meetings they have two advantages. Firstly they allow for a greater amount of communication (when conducted properly) between individuals. Secondly, they allow for a level of human contact that, I would wager, may be missing entirely within some of those dark islands of communication. By taking the time to talk to subordinates directly, a boss can better motivate, counsel, and (in bad cases) terrify them. When someone is confronted with an individual directly they cannot ignore him/her as easily as an e-mail, nor can they take as much time to edit what they say, often forcing them to share more than they otherwise would.
Despite my comfort with e-mail (I am a research programmer) I find face-to-face conversations far more useful and would despise any boss that I encountered only through e-mail.
Additionally this study makes no mention of that venerable, and outside the computational fields dominant, means of long-distance communication the telephone. For most professions this is still the primary method of communicating over distances larger than a building and remains so due to tradition and because it more closely approximates direct human contact than e-mail.
Any study which makes no attempt to catalogue the two most dominant means of exchanging information (face-to-face and telephone) is, outside of very specialized groups where e-mail is completely dominant is useless. For groups such as a GNU Project team who tend to be spread over large distances and have a love of e-mail this might work but that is, in the long run, a very small subset of actual functional teams.
Irvu.Re:More like Twister (Score:1)
Speka soma Englisha hera. (Score:1)
More info from CERN (Score:1)
Re:Almost all verbal (Score:1)
Re:When I was boss, I used ONLY verbal (Score:2)
Actually, I believe that dogs also play this kind of game. But cats don't seem to. So it's probably something that evolves naturally in animals that have a pack hierarchy.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Feeling Comfortable (Score:2)
The quality of the information matters (Score:3)
I once worked in a place where my manager was in the same room as the development team.
The conclusion of this:
People will not say everything to everybody. There are levels of trust, and you will give more or less information to someone depending on what you trust that person for.
If people acted as switches (all information comes out/no information comes out) the method we're discussing in this thread would be 100% applicable. In practice, you might install the system, run the programm, look at the resulting picture and figure out you're well connected well informed, when in reality you are kept in the dark about a number of subjects.
Re:A link (Score:1)
Look, if I stopped reading tweaked out manifestos by certified cranks, I might regain my sanity, and the reverse fnordic restablization would explode my cranium.
So you see, I have no choice.
Re:Value of verbal communication (Score:1)
Electronic media are not necessarily better for communication of technical details (at least not yet). When I have a question --- say, about the layout of the stack that our compiler uses --- it's faster, easier, and more productive for me to walk eight doors down to the compiler engineer and ask him to draw the stack on his whiteboard. I can ask questions, he can slow down when he sees the confused look on my face, he can speed up when I make that little hand gesture that says "yeah, yeah, I know", et cetera. Body language _can_ be used to expedite and steer a conversation. Verbal communication is faster than electronic communication in part because electronic communication is still mostly _typed_ communication (average of 160 words per minute for speech versus practical maximum of somewhere around 90 wpm for typing). Also, speech does not have the same lag time between bursts as does e-mail.
I am not disputing the claim that e-mail is extremely useful for technical communication; I am disagreeing with the claim that verbal communication is nigh useless.
I disagree with the claim that communication can "really only take place between equals". My manager is excellent at listening to my opinions; he very often gives me free rein to do things the way I see fit and very often takes my input as the final word on a matter on which he has to make a decision. He trusts me and works well with me _because_ I talk with him frequently and keep him up-to-date... not just on what I'm doing but on what I've learned about what each of the engineering groups are doing. Perhaps I can re-interpret the claim about communication between equals such that I agree with it, since the strength of my communication bond with my manager comes from his acknowledgement that he is my superior in a business hierachy but is my peer in terms of intrinsic abilities.
Vlad the Impaler (Score:2)
Vlad probably would have impaled skr1pt k1ddi3z.
Almost all verbal (Score:4)
I think it's different in the software world than in the pure Web world. In software, you're usually doing much less trouble-shooting, so email can be a better mechanism. On the Web, you've got a user having a problem, and you're expected to fix it in real-time, so email is just a little too slow.
I have yet to take the plunge and use IM for everthing. Jabber [jabber.org] may change that for me....
More like Twister (Score:4)
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The funniest part about Dilbert. (Score:1)
It's easy (Score:1)
Wow! (Score:3)
Perhaps its the wrong angle (Score:1)
I agree, the individual and how he/she intereact with other co-workers on a verbal or non-verbal is by far the most important aspect of having a fine tune well run organism (entity). I am interested to see the further development of this, however, because I do think that technology, software included, will be paramount in communication in the future, not just in callind long distance, but also to each other in close quarters. I don't know how, exactly, but its my best guess.
I'm not holding my breath yet, but I'm keeping my eyes open.
this is great but... (Score:3)
This speaks of a certain naivete... (Score:3)
The proper strategy is to talk early and often to the boss. If you give him enough information (on any topic; it doesn't have to be relevant) to keep his little neurons churning away, he won't have time to ask those pesky questions, like, "Why do you frantically close several windows on your machine whenever I walk in?" and "Why are our network switches melting down and where is all of this traffic on port 6099 coming from?"
--
internal mail envelopes (Score:2)
I reckon it would show the most valuable thing to understand about a job - the most important people in any organisation are the admin. and support staff. They know everybody.
Cultural Affect on These Results (Score:4)
Re:It's the SNAFU principle (Score:1)
Hail Eris,
All Hail Discordia
loser nerd approach (Score:2)
nerd problem: poor social and business skills.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
It's the SNAFU principle (Score:4)
Dilbert creating reality? (Score:1)
Re:More info from CERN (Score:1)
Value of verbal communication (Score:2)