THE COMMUNICATION PROBLEM
In each of the situations below, something appears to have gone wrong with the communication
process. Identify where in the communication process the breakdown occurred (i.e., the message, encoding, decoding, feedback, etc.).
1. During a project team meeting, you inform your laboratory technician that the customer wants
their product tested at 80°, 90°, and 100°F rather than at the normal testing temperatures of 75°,
85°, and 95°R The tests are scheduled to begin two months from now. After testing is completed,
you read the report prepared by the lab personnel and find that testing was performed at 75°, 85°,
and 95°E
2. Mary is project engineer assigned to your project team. During a team meeting, Mary casually in
forms you that she will have her yearly performance review with her line manager next month, at
which time she intends to request a promotion from "engineer" to "senior engineer." You wish her
luck and take no further action.
In the following month, you find that Mary's request for promotion was denied. The grapevine has
it that you sabotaged her chance for promotion when, in feet, you never even talked to her line
manager.
3. You are managing a project team of twenty people. Brenda is a procurement specialist who has
never worked for you before. During a one-on-one meeting, you inform Brenda that you will need
2,000 pounds of an expensive raw material and you instruct her to find out as quickly as possible
the lowest possible cost.
Two weeks later, you receive a phone call from the inventory control group that your 2,000 pounds
have arrived and have been placed into inventory stores. This creates a serious problem because the
project's budget did not plan for early procurement or even 100 percent procuremenr at one time.
You find out that Brenda signed the purchase requisition form for you.
4. The vice president for Information Systems informs you that he would like to be informed as to the
status of your project and that he wants to meet with you a week from Tuesday. As you walk into
his ofHce, he says, "Where's the status report I asked you for?"
5. The Drafting Department has just assigned a draftsman to your project. You meet with the new
team member, a person whom you have never met previously. You inform him the way you want
the drawing and ask him if he understood what you said. He responds, "Yes!"
Two weeks later you receive the drawing and find out that it is not to your specifications.
You question the draftsman and he responds, "This is the standard way we always prepare these
drawings."