What Has He Done For Me Lately?

Abstract

I had a boss once who continually asked me what the purpose of my work was, who were my customers, and how was I keeping my customers informed about my team's work. At first I found these questions perplexing, as my customers should have known the answers. I had covered them in my monthly/quarterly reports or in my project meeting notes. Finally, I confronted him about his questions. He acknowledged that my customers had this information, but he was hearing some disturbing comments between when I submitted my reports, comments like, 'What has he done for me lately?' I decided to take this input to heart. My ideas about communications norms needed a major overhaul. The communication norms I was comfortable with were becoming outdated. I realized the written and verbal communications response time was suddenly being measured in days or minutes. People's perception of a project team based on monthly or quarterly meetings was no longer adequate. In the past, once the team's credibility was established it was hard to change. In a rapid-fire communications world, no news causes people to question what the team is doing to move the business/project ahead.