Background: On a new project I’ve found myself 3 levels removed from my actual source of information. I report to my PM, who reports to our contractor, who reports to the actual client. Getting answers to questions has become something of a problem and I’m curious to know what people recommend.
Needs: I’m trying to find a technology or disciplined strategy that will assist me in ensuring that the questions I’m asking are getting answered:
- Correctly without much modification of the original question
- Quickly so the original context isn’t lost
- Completely so that if a question is deferred I don’t forget about it.
Does anyone know of a software suite that assists in this matter or do you have any personal discipline strategies that worked for you?
Thank you for the guidance
Best technology I can suggest is the telephone. You’ve got to open up direct lines of communication. But I guess you know that and are finding it difficult, someone along the line is not helping. So now you have to tackle that person, find out why not, what their reservations are and how you might allay their fears.
As for software, I recommend that you DO NOT look for a software solution to this sort of problem. Suppose you implement a new trouble-ticketing system for capturing client questions and comments and to feed back your questions and comments to your client. Next time you tackle your management about the issue one of 2 things will happen:
— The response will be ‘But you told us installing system TT would fix this !’
OR
— There must be something wrong with system TT, we’ll divert our energy to fixing the software.
Oh, and do write things down, so email might be even better than the telephone.
Regards
Mark