The communication concept shown in the video helped us think about this reading by learning how to have better communication and in result, have more effective meetings. In the reading it said, "In business, poor communication costs money and wastes time."
A member of our team gave the example of when they had a boss who would hold 3-4 meetings a week, and most the time they were absolutely useless and a waste of time. She talked about how there were so many other productive things her and her team could have been doing during this time, and if everyone knew how to communicate effectively, most these meetings could be eliminated.
We thought that sending out an agenda before hand, and having someone as a spokesperson for the meeting would eliminate a lot of the miscommunication and wasted time. We talked about how it can be especially difficult if you are communicating via phone or face-time, and by doing those little extra things before hand can make all the difference in how the meeting runs.
We think one of the essential principles about the training is to be clear and concise, while being respectful to others. The reading discussed how control is not a factor of good communication, so having the above principles is essential. Delegating work and making sure everyone is participating in meetings is key to good communication and effective meetings.
One thing we understood, but weren't really sure how to apply, was the communication process that the reading talked about. It's clear that things need to be delegated for good communication to happen but applying them was more difficult to understand. There's a lot of ways to go about good communication and it would be interesting to learn about best practices for communication from other companies.
We did, however, learn that, "Communication fulfills three main functions within an organization, including coordination, transmission of information, and sharing emotions and feelings." A team member talked about the software company they use to work for, Workfront, and that the product they sell is a project management software that is meant to eliminate miscommunication, unnecessary meetings and help fulfill the above 3 main functions of communication. We thought it was interesting how the different usage of technology today can promote good or bad communication habits.
When we read about communication, it really struck a chord with us because most problems happen because of miscommunication. People tend to not realize the damage that can be done with miscommunication. We need to be more aware of how we communicate. We learned that you can be so much more effective in meetings, specifically, if you create good communication habits.
From the reading and the video, our team learned that by being organized, clear, and respectful in ones communication, can help eliminate bad miscommunication and unnecessary meetings. We also want to reiterate that you can do things like send out an agenda prior to any meeting and pick a spokesperson or have designated times on the agenda for people to go through their information. If people know what is going to happen in the meeting it will be a faster meeting, and you will be able to get more accomplished.
We were able to work well as a team on this artifact because we communicated prior to our meeting so everyone knew what to expect. We have assigned everyone a week to bring an artifact to spread out some of the work and stay organized. When it's a person's week, they need to bring something that goes along with one of the reading topics. For this weeks, we had our leader choose the artifact and then together we watched the video and discussed ideas around communication and how we could use those to have more effective meetings.
Our scribe took notes, as well as contributed to the ideas. We had our spokesperson and ideas person keep the discussion moving smoothly. This format worked out really well so everyone knew what to expect this time around as well as next time around. Now doing the first artifact and understanding things better with the eportfolio, we will be even better prepared for our next meeting.