Seth Godin’s post from today trash talks compliance, in favor of teaching initiative and intelligent problem solving. Surprising to many, I’d like to speak up in defence of compliance.

There is incredible value in compliance.

It is valuable for a person to be able to follow a plan and consistently perform. 

It is valuable for an organization to have people who can follow plans and perform consistently. 

To grow, an organization needs to be able do what it does, consistently.  It needs to be able to teach and train people to be part of doing it. That’s the value of process and project management.  

1. A process or plan is developed, then executed.
2. The work product is evaluated and;
3. The plan is evaluated and improved. 

The goal of management, as a field of study, is to get people with different skill sets to work together to produce remarkable results.  Compliance helps managers accomplish this goal, measure results and rework.

Be consistent, evaluate results and rework.

Seth often talks about consistency and plugging away at building a brand or product. Rare are the overnight successes and instant home runs. A much more sure path to success is to focus on base hits. Be consistent, evaluate results and rework. You can’t do that if people don’t follow the plan.

There are few things more frustrating to a project manager than team members who do not communicate. Non-communicators can single-handedly eliminate a manager’s visibility on a project and be a source of unforeseen, and therefore, uncontrollable risks.

Within this group, the most frustrating are those that ignore direct requests for information or who only talk when they feel like it.

• To the extent that a project manager can pick their own team, non-communicators are generally the last people picked.
• To the extent that a project manager can influence HR decisions, “better communication skills” is the area of improvement most often recommended for non-communicators.
• To the extent that a project manager can limit a non-communicator’s participation in a project, they will.

But when it can’t be avoided here are a few tips to managing a non-communicator on a project.

Find the communication medium that works best. Some people respond to phone calls, others to emails. Some respond to instant message and some prefer talking one on one. Find the medium that works best for that person and stick to it.

Experiment with Non-Traditional Ways of Communicating. All of the above mentioned media are conversations or openings for a dialog. They are in a question/answer or solicitation/response format. Some people simply don’t work that way. Get creative in finding other ways of getting information that don’t involve a “conversation.”

For example, I’ve worked with non-communicators who are best at giving information as it directly relates to the completion status of a task. Instead of asking how things are going, I’ve found it more valuable to assign a task in a project management tool and let them indicate its status. The options I set in the project management software are simple: done or not-done. To maximize the value of information from this technique start with the most detailed level of a task you can find. Think of it like 20 questions where the person can only answer yes or no. Make each question (or in this case, task) count.

Be Patient. People have their own time lines when it comes to answering questions. Don’t mistakenly categorize someone as a non-communicator just because they take a long time to respond to you. I know some people that take 10 minutes or more to respond to a question on instant message. It can be very frustrating when you are expecting an “instant” answer on “instant message” and instead, get a response 10 minutes later.

Sometimes, people are thinking about the answer. Other times, the answer might be more complicated than the asker thinks. Learn how long it takes people to respond and budget in the appropriate amount of time.

Know How to Get Information When You Absolutely Need It. The corollary to being patient is to have a clear way to get information in an emergency. For example, call the person on their cell phone or go directly to their desk. This requires that the project manager prioritize their information need or, at a minimum, have a clear understanding of when to really bother someone. To be effective, use emergency procedures sparingly or, like the boy who cried wolf, it becomes just one more thing the non-communicator doesn’t respond to.

Be Persistent and Consistent. Make sure you get answers to the critical questions you ask. Make it easy for a non-communicator to distinguish between hearing your communication and needing to participate in the communication by providing information.

In the best case, by finding ways to get the information you need from a non-communicator you can potentially find a new, more productive way to make use of their skills on your projects. And if that doesn’t happen, you can at least reduce unforeseen risks to your projects and increase visibility.

Peter H. Feiler and Jorgen Hansson from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) have compiled and published some interesting statistics that point to the benefit of finding and fixing bugs early in a software development project.

There is a huge benefit to finding and fixing problems early.

Here are some of the most remarkable findings:

• 70% of faults are introduced in the early stages of a project lifecycle.
• But, only 3.5% of faults are found at that stage.

• 80% of faults are actually only found in the later stages of a project’s lifecycle.

• The cost of fixing faults in the early stages is 2.5x.
• The cost of fixing faults in later stages is 16x or higher.

According to the research you can save yourself over 600% on repair and rework costs on a project by finding and fixing problems early.

While this data is specifically for software development, the conclusion rings true for projects of all sorts, including marketing projects, creative work, manufacturing or research projects.

Wanted to pass on some great feedback from a new Vertabase customer and their first-hand experience using the timesheets on the iPhone.

Feedback has been positive so far with regards to how simple and easy the system is to use. I even tested timesheet entry using Safari and our iPhones and it works great. I looked at many web-only timesheet/project management products and Vertabase has exceeded my expectations so far.

The company is a strategic marketing and research firm.

I want to highlight a few of the things Vertabase has been doing for Haiti. This is not to toot our own horn but to point out a few extremely meaningful programs and ways to help.

1. We participated in sponsoring medical supplies that went with doctors from Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The surgeon that helped raise the money has an incredible, first-hand account of his time there. You can also contribute on the site.

2. The One Laptop Per Child program has started planning for the educational needs of the children of Haiti by launching this great collection of XO laptops for Haiti that were given out as part of the Give a Laptop Get a Laptop program over the last few years. As eary participants in this program we are sending them our XO’s.

One other neat program that is the geeks for Haiti t-shirt. You can promote your support and help your choice of charities like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders at the same time.