Have you ever bought an item of equipment that you thought could come in very useful only to leave it lying around for months because you could not figure out how to set it up? Or not set all the features up, because it would have cost hours to read through the handbook, which looked as if it had been translated by a computer anyway?
Most individuals have experienced the state of affairs at some time or another. I had an alarm clock once that had dozens of features like waking me up at different times on the weekend to during the week and randomly selecting a radio channel every day to wake me up. It also had a feature with which I could train it to recognize some voice commands, but I could not be concerned with all that.
I simply wanted it to wake me up whenever I set it. Video recorders are similar items. How many times do you hear of people setting their video recorder to record a movie only to get a soap opera on another channel? It used to happen a lot, didn't it?
The point that I am getting at here is that the designers of these machines have been told to put as many features as possible into them up to a price in order to be all things to all people. However, in making their machines so convoluted, a lot of people decide not to bother using them at all and will avoid that make in the future, which is the precise opposite of what the manufacturers intended.
The next time you go out looking for some electronic implement, you will say to yourself: "Oh, So-And-So, you need a degree to use one by So-And-So. I'm not buying one of those".
So how can this concern you? Well, if you have to coordinate anything that you expect others to take part in or be enthusiastic about, try not to make it excessively complex. I am not saying 'dumb-down', just don't show off by putting all the bells and whistles on it simply to show that you can do that. People will not thank you for it, they will take no notice of your undertaking.
This has a lot of implications for on line projects where individuals can be hundreds of miles apart but still be collaborating on a joint development from home. Open source programming is a good example of this type of work. The team leaders should keep everything as simple as possible if they want the utmost co-operation.
One way that you can use to check to see if your project is being understood is to inquire. It sounds obvious and it should be, but a lot of team leaders will not ask because they think that it makes them look weak and unknowledgeable. Again, in fact, the opposite is the case. A good team leader is not a despot; a good team leader is a good organizer and is considerate.
Most individuals have experienced the state of affairs at some time or another. I had an alarm clock once that had dozens of features like waking me up at different times on the weekend to during the week and randomly selecting a radio channel every day to wake me up. It also had a feature with which I could train it to recognize some voice commands, but I could not be concerned with all that.
I simply wanted it to wake me up whenever I set it. Video recorders are similar items. How many times do you hear of people setting their video recorder to record a movie only to get a soap opera on another channel? It used to happen a lot, didn't it?
The point that I am getting at here is that the designers of these machines have been told to put as many features as possible into them up to a price in order to be all things to all people. However, in making their machines so convoluted, a lot of people decide not to bother using them at all and will avoid that make in the future, which is the precise opposite of what the manufacturers intended.
The next time you go out looking for some electronic implement, you will say to yourself: "Oh, So-And-So, you need a degree to use one by So-And-So. I'm not buying one of those".
So how can this concern you? Well, if you have to coordinate anything that you expect others to take part in or be enthusiastic about, try not to make it excessively complex. I am not saying 'dumb-down', just don't show off by putting all the bells and whistles on it simply to show that you can do that. People will not thank you for it, they will take no notice of your undertaking.
This has a lot of implications for on line projects where individuals can be hundreds of miles apart but still be collaborating on a joint development from home. Open source programming is a good example of this type of work. The team leaders should keep everything as simple as possible if they want the utmost co-operation.
One way that you can use to check to see if your project is being understood is to inquire. It sounds obvious and it should be, but a lot of team leaders will not ask because they think that it makes them look weak and unknowledgeable. Again, in fact, the opposite is the case. A good team leader is not a despot; a good team leader is a good organizer and is considerate.
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