October 21, 2015 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings
A Project Manager’s Plea: Please Respond
By Kerry Wills
I have to say that my biggest frustration in the workplace has to be people who don’t respond to messages (or need to be asked five times before they respond). Unfortunately due to workloads most corporate cultures today communicate almost exclusively through e-mail. This causes project deliverables to be dependent on the responsiveness of the people who get the e-mails. I understand there are people who have hundreds of e-mails and may take some time to get back but what I cannot deal with is people who don’t respond at all. This then puts the onus on other people to track them down.
When people join companies, I don’t think that there is documentation in their orientation materials that says that work or responding is discretionary. So to not respond at all to messages seems like a form of insubordination and poor performance. I am probably taking a more aggressive view on this but my mindset is one of efficiency, responsiveness and productivity. Therefore, having to follow up with people on items where 3-5 messages were sent seems like a waste of time to me. I think it is perfectly reasonable to respond saying “I can’t get to it now” or “I don’t think this is my accountability” in which case a conversation can be had. But by not responding it puts the onus on the sender to keep following up vs taking accountability for the item.
Others may not agree with the comments here, so please reply with your thoughts.
Kerry Wills is a proven Program Manager/Portfolio Manager with an extensive background in Project Management, consulting, and application development. Kerry has consistently demonstrated the ability to plan and implement large and complex projects on time and on/under budget. Kerry runs a blog, Adventures in Project Management.
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