Group Change Proposal: Gavin Hogan.
Better Team Communication Through Better Status Update Processes.

By refining the structure of the Architecture department’s status processes I will improve the quality and efficiency of communication for the department. This improvement will have a positive impact for myself, my direct reports, and the Chief Technology Officer. Currently, the team status meeting is the totality of the team status update process. The meeting follows the style of an executive briefing. Each team member gives a brief update on their respective goals and tasks. The status meeting gives me the information I need to provide upward communication of department status to the Chief Technology Officer. My direct reports use the team meeting as a forum to ‘bounce’ ideas off each other and overcome obstacles they have encountered. I frequently use the status meeting to communicate downwards, providing information from the Chief Technology Officer and other leadership roles.

I propose to change the status update process from being a weekly executive briefing, to a broader system of communication processes. The existing format is lightweight, requiring only face to face dialogue but it creates several challenges. The output is subject to distortion, especially when decisions are presented to others. Robbins and Judge highlight, “One major disadvantage of oral communication surfaces whenever a message has to pass through a number of people: the more people, the greater the potential distortion” (Robbins, Judge, 2016, p.179). When reporting upward to the Chief Technology Officer I am subject to this distortion. Working from memory or informal notes leads me to misreport important information. At status meetings, team members can appear unprepared. They fail to report on important items and are unable to answer my follow up questions. I implicitly expect them to be ready to discuss any item at any time. The status update meeting is a good place for us to reach a decision as a team, but that decision is not always durable. We debate the same item on multiple occasions, leading to lower work efficiency for the team.

I will keep the weekly meeting at the center of the status update process, but surrounded with a system of communication techniques to maximize its value. To improve my team status process, I will apply the concepts advocated by John Cleese and Antony Jay in their short film “Meetings, Bloody Meetings” (Cleese, Jay, 1976). This seminal workplace training video illustrates how company meetings, like courtroom proceedings, must follow a formal process to be effective. The film lays out a framework that calls on managers to plan the meeting, inform attendees ahead of time, prepare for the meeting, structure and control the meeting, and then summarize and record the results. For this change, I propose three key interventions.

Written Weekly Updates.
To follow the framework established by Cleese and Jay, I must establish an agenda for the meeting. I aim to host meetings that are decision focused so I must gather information ahead of the meeting. I will require team members send me a weekly update email. The email will include their status updates along with any requests they have for team discussions. These emails will allow me to prepare for the meeting and establish an efficient agenda. Instead of hosting a meeting to get the team status, I can evaluate the status updates to decide what needs to be on the agenda, and in some cases, I may be able to cancel unnecessary meetings.

The key improvement is that this important information will be subject to far less distortion as written communication. Judge and Robbins emphasize that “…written communications can be well thought out, logical, and clear”, and result in “… tangible and verifiable...” communication (Robbins, Judge, 2016, p 182). This is exactly the properties I want for these communications. The communication channel is less rich than the face-to-face meeting it replaces. This is acceptable in this case. There is no obvious need to convey subtle messages with facial expression or tone of voice. Such subtlety may even hinder communication.

The key positive outcomes I predict are that I will be better prepared for hosting a productive team meeting and to communicate important status updates to the Chief Technology Officer. For the team members, this will be additional work that they need to do each week. Reducing the additional overhead of this practice will be key for adoption. The potential for cascading failures should be considered. If weekly updates are late, there may not be enough time to prepare an agenda, or summarize the status for the Chief Technology Officer.

As a reinforcement mechanism, I will employ the same technique for communicating downward to the team. I will publish my status update to the team wiki on the same schedule as the update emails. I hope that the benefit the team members get from me providing written updates to them will convince them of the benefit of this communication mechanism.

Reducing Information Overload with an Agenda.
With the weekly updates in hand, I can prepare a succinct agenda. The agenda will be distributed ahead of time so that all parties can prepare for the meeting. As described by Cleese and Jay the agenda will be suitably structured such that there is a clear description of each item, they will be sorted based on urgency or priority, and they will be time bound based on importance.

The meeting itself will be focused on communicating efficiently to get to a decision. A key aim for me adopting a refined agenda is to reduce information overload. Information overload occurs when “… the information we have to work with exceeds out processing capacity” (Robbins, Judge, 2015, p185). In the existing format, I am creating this situation by implicitly expecting team members to be prepared to discuss any item at any time. In many cases we discuss items of low relevance or significant complexity, both of which cause people to detach from the meeting due to information overload. We will have moved the higher volume of information sharing to the weekly status emails. In the meeting, we will target one item at a time. For topics that are inherently complex or information dense, the team can distil that information ahead of the meeting. To further support this goal, I must ensure that the time boxes and the order of the meeting are respected.

A primary positive outcome is that the team will be able to efficiently communicate on complex topics. Reducing information overload will allow the team to direct more of their mental capacity on work of high importance. I am concerned that some decisions will be made without enough forethought due to artificially introduced  time pressures.

Clear decisions drive work with purpose and reduce wasted effort. I believe that having a structure for effectively making decisions in the team will have a positive impact on morale. I will highlight the impact of recent decisions at the top of each meeting, reinforcing the overall process.

Following Through with Minutes and Action Items.
Minutes will be recorded using the agenda as a template. Under each agenda item will be the key points raised, the decisions made, any follow-up actions identified. Actions will be assigned by name. The minutes will be distributed on the same day as the meeting. Before the meeting is adjourned the minutes will be recited to ensure the whole team can confirm that they are accurate. An appendix to the agenda will include any non-agenda items raised for discussion. Such items can be discussed on another occasion. The minutes are a critical record of the decisions we have made and are the key to effective follow through.

Once again, we are choosing a less rich channel to communicate. As with the status update emails, there is little need for richer communication channels. We require an accurate, durable and timely mode of communication.

Team members can rely on the minutes being a reliable source of team agreement. They can build upon the decisions made by the team, without the risk of the work being undermined by repeated discussion of the same topic. There is a risk that the minute taker will be handicapped in his/her ability to contribute to the discussion and that may lead to invalid decisions being made.

The minutes will become a primary document for guiding the work of the team. The team will depend on the minutes to plan their week, reinforcing the process.  I will rely on the minutes when setting the next agenda, so the minutes and the agenda will become co-dependent.

Summary.
If we move forward with this proposal, then I expect to see a dramatic improvement in the communication efficiency of the Architecture department. Better communication will lead to clearer decision making and greater overall team productivity. The changes I propose will have no additional cost to CommerceHub and can be put into action quickly.