Team Dynamics and Performance

A team is a group of people but every group is not a team. A team is different from a group in the sense that it is usually small and exists for relatively long period of time till the objective for which it is formed is accomplished. A team must, ideally, consist of members who possess multifarious skills to efficiently handle various types of tasks as per job responsibilities and tasks that are to be carried out. The purpose of forming a team is to improve the internal and external efficiencies of the company. This is done through the efforts of the team members to improve quality, methods, and productivity. Management supports the team process by

1. Ensuring a constancy of purpose
2. Reinforcing positive results,
3. Sharing business results
4. Giving people a sense of mission
5. Developing a realistic and integrated plan
6. Providing direction and support

Successful teams have some characteristics in common. Effective teams have

1. diverse members with a common mission
2. knowledge and expertise
3. cooperation and trust between members
4. effective communication skills
5. creativity
6. effective decision-making skills

Team Stages

Most teams go through four development stages before they become productive – forming, storming, norming, and performing. Bruce W. Tuckman first identified the four development stages, which are

1. Forming – Expectations are unclear. When a team forms, its members typically start out by exploring the boundaries of acceptable group behavior with leader directs the team. Members please each other and take pride in being part of new team. This period is also called as honeymoon period. In the forming stage, roles will need to be formalized and clarification given about the responsibilities of different team members. The team leader or facilitator is critical to this stage, because his or her behavior is important in how the team is going to come together. The facilitator or team leader needs to pay attention to the process, make sure that the structure is clear, and act in a directive manner at the beginning of the team-building process.
2. Storming – Consists of conflict and resistance to the group’s task and structure. Conflict often occurs and disagreements slow down the team as every team member positions his position. However, if dealt with appropriately, these stumbling blocks can be turned into performance later. This is the most difficult stage for any team to work through. Careful facilitation, moving things forward, and keeping everyone on the same page are crucial to this stage. The team leader will need to coach the team and come up with a code of honor – establishing how team members are going to treat each other throughout the entire process. Differences need to be resolved quickly to remain focused on the endgame, and team members should honor one another by paying attention and listening carefully. Once you have tested those boundaries and reached a consensus on performance, goals, and better communication, you can move on to the next phase.
3. Norming – A sense of group cohesion develops and team members resolve conflicts by agreeing on mutually agreeable ideas. Team members use more energy on data collection and analysis as they begin to test theories and identify root causes. The team develops a routine and trust amongst members. Team members begin to see each other’s points of view and cohesion is attained. A better understanding of the process and purpose of the work is gained, and a working style for the team is agreed upon. It’s during this phase that the team leader can take a little step back and let the team members take more responsibility for the process.
4. Performing – The team begins to work effectively and cohesively as each team member is independent with responsibility and function. It is the highest possible level of productivity with the least amount of friction within the group. It’s during this time that the team members are really coming together with a consensual approach to getting things done and are unified around a goal. At this stage, the team leader needs to delegate and then step aside to let the team work through the process. The team leader should ensure that breakthroughs are celebrated and small successes are recognized.
5. Transitioning – In this last phase, the team is split as the project ends. If project’s scope is increased then as per the scope, selective team members continue and rest go back to other work. You may want to disband the team because you are completely out of time, or far enough along that you can delegate the remaining pieces to team members. At this stage, you need to encourage and support those team members who have trouble moving on from the project. If there is uncertainty about the future or your team members are losing interest, it may be a signal to start thinking about adjourning the team and having things completed in a different fashion.
6. Recognition The recognition stage should never be overlooked. Here, the team leader is absolutely critical in ensuring that the team gets the credit, and not the leader or facilitator. At this stage, a process review should occur, in which the team leader can offer overall feedback regarding successes, failures, and how the process could be improved. Successes should be celebrated and the organization made aware of the team’s accomplishments. Credit should be given where it is due.

Various conflicts arise amongst members of the team or between members and the leader during the team formation, relating to the group objectives, structure, or procedures. Several ways to resolve includes

1. Do not tighten control or try to force members to conform to the procedures or rules established in the earlier stage.
2. If disputes over procedures crop up, opt for a group consensus.
3. Investigate the reasons behind the conflict and negotiate acceptable solution.
4. In inter-member conflict, act as a mediator between team members.
5. Dissuade any counter-productive behavior.
6. Focus on working together efficiently.
7. Group norms are enforced on the group by the group itself.

Common problems faced by team includes

1. Floundering – It can be resolved by reviewing the plan and developing a new plan for movement.
2. Reluctant or Dominating participants – It’s resolution is to structure the member’s participation and balance it so that it is not tilted towards few members of the team. The leader also acts as gate-keeper.
3. Feuds – It is resolved by talking to offending parties in private and developing ground rules for engagement and behavior.

Team Types

A team can generally be classified as ‘formal’ or ‘informal’.

1. Formal team – It is a team formed to accomplish a particular objective or a particular set of objectives. The objective of the team formation is called as ‘mission’ or ‘statement of purpose’. It may consist of a charter, list of team members, letter of authorization and support from the management.
2. Informal team – This type of team will not have the documents that a formal team will have. But an informal team consist versatile membership as the members in it can be changed as per the requirements of the task on hand.

A team can also be classified into following types depending on a given situation and constraints that prohibit the formation of either formal or informal teams, as

Virtual team

A virtual team is usually formed to overcome the constraint of geographical locations which separate members. Some of the characteristics of a virtual team are as follows –

1. It consists of members who live in different places and who may never meet one another during the course of accomplishment of the goal of the team.
2. In a virtual team, the members make use of different technologies like telephone, internet, etc. to coordinate within the team for the achievement of the common goal.

Process improvement team

It is formed to discover the modifications required in a particular process in order to improve it. It consists of members who belong to various groups that will be affected by the proposed changes, thus making it cross functional in nature. Process improvement teams tend to come together around very specific kinds of objectives. A team will focus on a specific business or operational process, have urgency about getting rapid results, and be highly committed to making things happen. These teams prioritize low-hanging fruit – things that are high impact and very doable – and that will generate a lot of return on an investment. Sufficient management support is needed, but you also need to have the right team to drive improvement to an overall process.

Quality Teams

Quality teams tend to be a little longer lasting and drive efficiency. When you look at things that don’t create a quality output, you’ll often find you can eliminate them and their associated activities. By doing this, you can generate many possible activities to improve a particular process.

Self-directed and work group teams

It has wide-ranging goals that are ongoing and repetitive. This necessitates the team to carry out activities on a daily basis. They are usually formed to make decisions on matters such as safety, personnel, maintenance, quality, etc.

Self-managed teams correlate very highly to the concept of quality or kaizen circles. They tend to be formed around repeating processes that occur on a routine basis – for example, a group of employees who meet every day to discuss events, possible improvements, and progress. They are autonomous and self-organized. As such, these teams require minimal supervision from management, and the team leaders guide, rather than direct, their teams. These teams are agile and can take on a wide variety of projects.

Ad-hoc Teams

Ad-hoc teams come together to solve a very specific bigger problem. They tend to have a limited lifespan and may only come together one time to accomplish a specific set of goals. They usually come together with a well-defined purpose and vision. These teams could be interdepartmental or cross-functional, and could be dealing with very specific stakeholders that need to be addressed as part of solving the particular problem.

Team Roles and Member Selection

A team performs optimally when all the members are assigned appropriate roles and they understand their roles in terms of the overall functioning of the team. Some of the major team roles and responsibilities are as

1. Champion
2. Sets and maintains broad goals for improvement projects in area of responsibility
3. Owns the process
4. Coaches and approves changes, if needed, in direction or scope of a project
5. Finds (and negotiates) resources for projects
6. Represents the team to the Leadership group and serves as its advocate
7. Helps smooth out issues and overlaps
8. Works with Process Owners to ensure a smooth handoff at the conclusion of the project
9. Regular reviews with Process Owner on key process inputs and outputs
10. Uses DMAIC tools in everyday problem solving

1. Process Owner
2. Maximizes high level process performance
3. Launches and sponsors improvement efforts
4. Tracks financial benefit of project
5. Understands key process inputs and outputs and their relationship to other processes
6. Key driver to achieve Six Sigma levels of quality, efficiency and flexibility for this process
7. Uses DMAIC tools in everyday problem solving
8. Participates on GB/BB teams

1. Team Member
2. Participates with project leader (GB or BB)
3. Provides expertise on the process being addressed
4. Performs action items and tasks as identified
5. Uses DMAIC tools in everyday problem solving
6. Subject matter expert (SME)

1. Green Belt (GB)
2. Leads and/or participates on Six Sigma project teams
3. Identifies project opportunities within their organization
4. Know and applies Six Sigma methodologies and tools appropriately

1. Black Belt (BB)
2. Proficient in Six Sigma tools and their application
3. Leads/supports high impact projects to bottom line full-time
4. Directly supports MBB’s culture change activities
5. Mentors and coaches Green Belts to optimize functioning of Six Sigma teams
6. Facilitates, communicates, and teaches
7. Looks for applicability of tools and methods to areas outside of current focus
8. Supports Process Owners and Champions

1. Master Black Belt (MBB)
2. Owns Six Sigma deployment plan and project results for their organization
3. Responsible for BB certification
4. Supervisor for DMAIC BBs; may be supervisor for DFSS BBs
5. Influences senior management and Champions to support organizational engagement
6. Leads culture change – communicates Six Sigma methodology and tools
7. Supports Champions in managing project and project prioritization
8. Ensures that project progress check, gate review, and closing processes meet corporate requirements and meet division needs
9. Communicates, teaches, and coaches

1. Coach
2. Some businesses have coaches who support the GBs and others coach the BBs.
3. Trains Green Belts with help from BBs and MBB
4. Coaches BBs and GBs in proper use of tools for project success
5. Is a consulting resource for project teams

Various tools are used by team members and leaders during team formation and it’s different phases which have been listed below.

Mapping talents

An important consideration is mapping talents to the specific needs of the project and the team. This includes taking into account the need for subject matter experts, suppliers, or customer input. Also consider including specific technical, organizational, or communication skills in your team, to ensure that you have a balanced approach and all of the talent skills you need.

Teams can be formed for different purposes and specific projects. There are several common types of teams:

1. process teams
2. quality teams
3. ad-hoc teams
4. self-managed teams

An ad-hoc team could be formed and end in hours, whereas a self-managed – or a self-directed work team, or a quality circle, or a kaizen circle team – could exist for years with a stable number of team members and a team leader.

Team Tools

Various tools are used by team members and leaders during team formation and it’s different phases which includes brainstorming, NGT, etc

Brainstorming

The brainstorming technique was introduced by Alex Faickney Osborn in his book Applied Imagination in 1930. It is used as a tool to create ideas about a particular topic and to find creative solutions to a problem. It is used to leverage individual expertise and allow for everybody to have a say. Careful attention should be paid to everyone’s nuances and information as you move through the brainstorming process. Ideas should be heard, captured, and entertained – they should not be judged or interrogated in terms of their practicality or implementation. At this stage, you just want to capture all those great ideas and get them down on paper so that you can work with them.

Brainstorming Procedure

The first and foremost procedure in conducting brainstorming is to review the rules and regulations of brainstorming. Some of the rules and regulations are: all the ideas should be recorded, no scope for criticism, evaluation and discussion of ideas.

The second procedure is to examine the problem that has to be discussed. Ensure that all the team members understand the theme of brainstorming. Give enough time (i.e., one or two minutes) for the team members to think about the problem. Ask the team members to think creatively to generate ideas as much as possible. Record the ideas generated by the members so that everyone can review those ideas. Proper care has to be taken to ensure that there is no criticism of any of the ideas and everyone is allowed to be creative.

Brainstorming can be listed as a process of following steps

1. Identification and information – The first couple of phases are very important. Einstein is quoted as saying that the “formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution.” Be clear about what is being asked in a brainstorming session. Be specific with your goal and hold each other accountable to staying on point as you generate your ideas. Information – like value stream maps, studies, and statistical analysis – is extremely helpful in brainstorming sessions.
2. Speculation and suspension – You want to generate as many ideas as possible. The more ideas you have, the more likely you are to find those good ideas that you can leverage going forward. You should remain in an open frame of mind and welcome all ideas, no matter how outrageous they may sound. The facilitator here has a critical role to make sure everybody participates. One strategy for increasing participation is setting a rule whereby every team member needs to offer up at least one idea in the first round of a brainstorming session, and may only pass in subsequent rounds. You can keep going with brainstorming until everybody says “pass,” and then you can move on to the next part. It is always critical to record those ideas and keep those visible to the team at all times, for instance on a flip chart. It’s often a good idea to take a little break then, to give the team time to process the ideas.
3. Evaluation, analysis, and presentation – During the evaluation, analysis, and presentation phases, you should begin to look at those ideas in a more critical way.

Consider the factors like practicality of the idea, people involved, possible obstacles and cost. The ideas can then be ranked, based on factors such as possible impact, feasibility and cost.

From there you can order the ideas according to their ranking, scrapping the ones that don’t have a lot of merit and, as a consensual agreement, zero in on the most important ones. In this way, you can focus on the ideas that would make the most financial sense and then assess those suggestions based on the feasibility and the impact that you could get from implementing them fully. After this has been done, you can prepare a report to your sponsors, your managers, or whomever it is that needs to approve the work that you’re going to do, before moving on to implementation.

Brainstorming Rules

Rules to be followed for brainstorming are

1. Ensure that all the team members participate in the brainstorming session because the more the ideas that are produced, the greater will be the effect of the solution.
2. As the brainstorming session is a discussion among various people, no distinction should be made between them. The ideas generated by other people should not be condemned.
3. At the time of building people’s ideas, consider each person’s ideas as the best, because the ideas generated by each individual may be superior to the other person.
4. While generating ideas, always put more trust on quantitative ideas rather than qualitative ideas. As a facilitator tally these generated ideas with the team’s performance.

Nominal Group Technique (NGT)

The nominal group technique was introduced by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson in 1971. It is a kind of brainstorming that encourages every participant to express his/her views. This technique is used to create a ranked list of ideas. In this technique, all the participants are requested to write their ideas anonymously and the moderator collects the written ideas and each is voted on by the group. It helps in decision-making and organizational planning where creative solutions are sought. It is generally carried out on a Six Sigma project to get feedback from the team members.

When using NGT, the individuals involved have minimal interaction with one another – so it’s actually a group in name only. What’s important is to start out with a topic or problem that’s presented by the facilitator. This needs to be open-ended, so that you engender many ideas for what you might do about it. From here, you ask the individuals in the room to privately write those ideas down. It’s important to ensure minimal group interaction during this idea generation part of the process. Anonymity means there will be no self-censorship, since people will not be made to feel self-conscious about what others may think.

NGT can be used in the following circumstances:

1. when some members may not be participating very well
2. when individuals feel they might concentrate better in isolation or silence
3. when the issue dealt with is of a controversial nature
4. when there are low levels of team cohesion

NGT Procedure

All the members of the team are asked to create ideas and write them down without discussing with others. The inputs from all members are openly displayed and each person is asked to give more explanation about his/her feedback. Each idea is then discussed to get clarification and evaluation. This is usually a repetitive process. Each person is allowed to vote individually on the priority of ideas and a group decision is made based on these ratings.

NGT can be listed in following steps

1. Step 1: Problem is presented – The facilitator must first present the topic or problem as an open-ended question. You may want to have a brief discussion for clarification, to make sure that the topic or problem is understood and that there is no ambiguity. From there we want to confirm understanding of the problem or goals.
2. Step 2: Members write down ideas – After a brief discussion, members work in private and are asked to write down as many ideas as possible.
3. Step 3: Ideas are shared aloud – The participants are asked to read their responses one at a time, and you record their ideas on a flipchart or another medium that is visible to everyone. This process continues until each participant has given several responses, you have captured everything in the room, or you have run out of time. What’s important here, is that there can be no discussion or questions allowed during this process. You need to allow team members an opportunity to pass when their turn comes around. It is also very important to honor and capture those ideas that come up spontaneously during this process.
4. Step 4: Members score or vote on ideas – Next, you move on to identifying these ideas and moving through the prioritization process. Each of the ideas receives a letter or a number so you can work with them, and each idea is discussed in the order they appeared. After that, you ask the individual participants to select their favorite ideas, perhaps their top five. They can record this privately on their own papers and then rank these five ideas in descending order. The team can, for example, be asked to assign points to their favorite five ideas – five points for the top choice, down to one point for the last choice. Those numbers can then be added up across the entire group. This technique preserves anonymity and avoids clashes of opinion, while still enabling the ranking of ideas.
5. Step 5: Ideas are ranked based on score – Finally, you get down to ranking the ideas based on their score, and each ranking is then recorded visually – perhaps on a large spreadsheet. The scores from all the participants can be added up, resulting in a score for each idea. You’ll then rank these ideas based on the score that they received. From there, a report can be prepared showing the ideas receiving the most points, and the implementation process can begin. This method ensures that the ideas being implemented have been fully understood and contributed to by your group. Even though there may not be a high level of agreement around what to do, you will have received the group’s opinion about what’s important and what’s next.

Multi-Voting

Multivoting, which is also called NGT voting or nominal prioritization, is a simple technique used by teams to choose the most significant or highest priority item from a list with limited discussion and difficulty. Generally it follows the brainstorming technique.

Multivoting is used when the group has a lengthy list of possibilities and wants to specify it in a small list for later analysis and discussion. It is applied after brainstorming for the purpose of selecting ideas.

It involves teams making multiple votes to rank or narrow down a list of ideas, options, or solutions. It’s primarily useful for allowing choices that are favored by everyone to make the list – even if these choices may not be everybody’s personal top choice. Multivoting is particularly good for large groups and group settings where voting can occur without fear or reluctance on anybody in the group’s part. It allows you to narrow down a very large list into a small number of the key things that meets the criteria for the next stage in the process. You can use this technique after open brainstorming or after a Nominal Group Technique (NGT) idea generation – if the group is amenable to that, and it’s appropriate in that situation. The attributes of the multivoting process may differ slightly from those of brainstorming and the Nominal Group Technique.

Multivoting Procedure

The procedure to be followed for conducting Multivoting, is

1. Conduct a brainstorming process to create a list of ideas and record the ideas that are created during this process. After completing this, clarify the ideas and combine them so that everyone can easily understand. The group should not discuss the ideas at this time.
2. Participants will vote for the ideas that are eligible for more discussion. Here the participants are given freedom to vote for as many ideas as they desire. Tally the vote for each item. If any item gets the majority of votes, it is placed for the next round.
3. In the next level of voting, the participants can cast their vote for the remaining items in the list.
4. Participants will continue their voting till they get a proper number of ideas for the group to examine as a part of the decision-making or problem solving process. When the group holds a discussion about pros and cons of the project, the remaining ideas are discussed.
5. This discussion may be completed by a group as a whole.
6. Continue proper actions by creating a choice of the best option or discovering the top priorities.

Sometimes it can be done differently. You may, for example, brainstorm until you are done and after that only choose the top 10% to 25% of ideas The ideas that earned the top 10% to 25% of the votes will often give you at least 80% or 90% of the value for your effort.

Multivoting is primarily useful for allowing choices that are favored by everyone to make the list – even if these choices may not be everybody’s personal top choice.

Team Success Factor

The critical success factors for achieving Six Sigma team success are

1. management support
2. mutual trust, respect, and support on the team
3. communication
4. balanced participation
5. a scientific approach
6. clarity and awareness
7. decision-making procedures

Team Communication

Besides training, Six Sigma teams also need to have effective communication to run smoothly. Team members can use these communication tools to help them overcome a lack of personal contact:

1. the Internet
2. personal communication devices
3. teleconferencing
4. videoconferencing

The Internet provides a way for teams to communicate quickly and inexpensively throughout the world. With access to the Internet, team members also have access to e-mail, web sites that can be both public and private – such as intranets with project discussion or message boards – and instant messaging (IM).

Any number of small information-handling devices are now available to enhance team communication. Personal communication devices enable communication regardless of the location of the intended respondent, and include the following

1. cell phones
2. pagers
3. personal digital assistants (PDAs)

A teleconference is a telephone meeting between participants in separate locations. Teleconferences are similar to telephone calls, but they can expand the discussion to include more than two people. While using teleconferencing, there are a couple of things you should remember to manage the conversation and have an written agenda.

In videoconferencing, participants feel more involved with each other because they can observe body language and facial expressions. Developing the commitment of the full team is particularly important during kickoff meetings, so it’s especially appropriate to hold this meeting at a site that is accessible to videoconferencing. Then, even if some members can’t physically attend, they can still be fully involved.

Effective Team Communication

Communicating effectively can certainly be a challenge, and you need team members who are getting the right information at the right time. A lack of clarity is the prime cause of frustration and ineffectiveness for many organizations. There will be differences in professional experience, organizational status, ability to take risks, and individual personalities. People may respond differently to incentives or rewards that are offered, and may vary in their willingness to change and to listen to other viewpoints.

Communication in the context of applying Six Sigma is critical. Stakeholders and team members need to be kept informed. You need to share your vision for the project with both stakeholders and the team. You then need to listen to their feedback to ascertain if they have understood and interpreted the information correctly.

Effective communication could involve the following:

1. providing education
2. sharing results
3. reporting progress
4. conducting reviews
5. designing an ongoing awareness plan
6. celebrating success

Communication is the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge between sender and receiver through an accepted code of symbols. It is a two way process. The process is as

1. an information source or sender, which produces a message
2. a transmitter or encoding , which encodes the message into signals
3. a channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
4. a receiver or decoding, which decodes the message from the signal
5. a destination or receiver, where the message arrives.
6. noise, is any interference with the message traveling along the channel

Communication Types

Communication is either verbal or non-verbal.

Verbal communication

It uses verbal medium like words, speeches, presentations etc. and the sender shares his/her thoughts in the form of words. The tone of the speaker, the pitch and the quality of words play a crucial role in verbal communication.

The speaker has to be loud and clear and the content has to be properly defined. While speaking the pitch ought to be high and clear for everyone to understand and the content must be designed keeping the target audience in mind. In verbal communication it is the responsibility of the sender to cross check with the receiver whether he has got the correct information or not and the sender must give the required response.

Non verbal communication

It involves facial expressions, gestures, hand and hair movements and body postures for non verbal communication. Any communication made between two people without words and simply through facial movements, gestures or hand movements is called as non verbal communication. In other words, it is a speechless communication where content is not put into words but simply expressed through expressions If one has a headache, one would put his hand on his forehead to communicate his discomfort – a form of non verbal communication. Non verbal communications are vital in offices and meetings.

Team communication can also be categorized as

1. One-way communication – One-way communications are very frequently used and they are appropriate in certain conditions. This type of communication does not require an immediate response, and is used when the information is not particularly urgent, confidential, or sensitive. Examples include e-mail, memos, announcements, progress reports, voicemail messages, status updates, and reviewing feedback.
2. Two-way communication – Two-way communications are a little different. Here you’re looking for an interactive multiple directional cycle of communication. You need to get feedback to see if the message sent was received as intended, and you require immediate feedback. The two-way communication is a method in which each party transmits information, and you use this type of communication to react and respond to each other in real-time. Interactive communication is appropriate when an immediate response is required, when the information is sensitive, or possibly likely to be misinterpreted. It’s also beneficial for brainstorming, feedback, and collaboration. Examples include telephone calls, text messaging, or voice-over IP.
3. Top-down communications – Top-down communications are very important where you drive influence through the organization. Informed employees are empowered employees. This type of communication is used to remind employees about vision, strategies, objectives, policies, and developments. It is also used to deliver performance feedback. Unfortunately a lack of adequate downward communication is often cited as a management failure. In corporate downsizing, for example, employees often do not believe management, feel misinformed, and complain that decisions were not adequately explained to them. It is therefore important to work on successfully implementing this type of communication.
4. Bottom-up communications – Bottom-up communications are also very important. You need to keep your managers aware of what’s going on, provide progress on performance, explain problems, and make suggestions for improvement. It is important for employees to believe that the door is really open for communication. By doing this, employees can be empowered. Upward communication helps to keep upper levels informed of what the worker levels are thinking, and can suggest where there may be improvements. Unfortunately, upward communication has historically been a problem in some organizations, due to the lower level employees filtering the information that’s going up. This can leave many higher level organizational managers in the dark about what’s really happening in an organization.
5. Horizontal communication – It is important to collaborate. You need to promote this notion in today’s customer-focused organizations. You need to have timely and accurate feedback and product information to do the right thing. To serve your customer needs, information needs to be shared and speedily passed along to the people who need it to do their work. Inside the organization, people must be willing and able to communicate across departmental and functional boundaries, and listen to each other’s needs as internal process customers. This is communicating horizontally. Collaborative organizational designs emphasize lateral communication in the form of cross-departmental committees, teams, and task forces, as well as using a matrix structure in the design of the organization.

Communication Barriers

Barriers block communication due to which the information to communicate, is not absorbed correctly by the audience. Various barriers which affect communications are

1. Noise – Noises present during communication like in marriages high volume music is used
2. Cultural barriers – Persons from different culture acts as a barrier like dealing with foreigner
3. Emotions – Receiver is emotionally charged like sad due to death of near one
4. Poor retention – Receiver is unable to recall or remember the information
5. Poor Timing – A last moment communication with deadline may put too much pressure on the receiver and may result in resentment.
6. Inappropriate Channel – Poor choice of channel of communication can also be contributory to them is understanding of the message.
7. Network Breakdown – Sometime staff may forget to forward a letter or there may be professional jealousy resulting in closed channel.

Barrier Removal can be done by taking effective steps as per the barrier type. Different barrier solving steps usually include

1. Effective Listening
2. Convey emotional contents of the message
3. Use appropriate language
4. Use proper channel
5. Encourage open communication
6. Ensure two-way communication
7. Make best use of body language

Communication techniques for project success

The environment in which conflict is managed is important. It is essential to manage communications to overcome the barriers and foster a supportive climate, marked by emphasis on

1. Problem orientation- focusing attention on the task.
2. Spontaneity- communicating openly and honestly.
3. Empathy: understanding another person’s thoughts.
4. Equality-asking for opinions