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PM Tip #12: Don't waste keystrokes

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Update: See the full list of PM Tips.

At Mix I ran into Jeff Atwood who reminded me about a my post on the "Be More Visible" Sham.  He also told me I should take a look at Jon Udell's post Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes [via Jeff's blog]

While I don't think every PM has to be a noteworthy blogger to have a successful career, I do think Jon's principle of conservation of keystrokes is an important one.  By far the biggest problem I see on teams of > 1 is communication.  Different people know different information, this leads to disconnects and often to product design, quality and schedule issues.  

Teams need better communication and PMs are primarily responsible for this.  So think about the email you are getting ready to write... Should you add a tester or dev to that email?  better yet, should you use a team alias?  What info should flow up to your management chain or across to your peers?  can you forward that mail?  And to Jon's point, can you just blog it and share it with the world?

As Jon mentions, there is a time and a place for private communications, but generally we tend to overuse them.

Good luck and happy communicating!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 06, 2007
    I looked at the title in my feed reader and did a double take. In the millisecond it took for my brain to realize that it was a typo, it ran through a thousand different possible meanings for 'waisting keystrokes' :)

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2007
    Lol, waist.   The artilce is good.  I recently decided to stop wasting my keystrokes, AND stop giving other people my content....

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2007
    Also, don't arm your keystrokes or else you will be de-feeted.  

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2007
    Good read! I believe in the current era, its all about visibility. Blogging is one of the main link generator these days. I guess we all have to thank Scoble for that