“Do you know how many communication channel you have with your team?”…one of my friends asked me.
“I do have 100+ TV channels but what is this Communication Channel...you are talking about?” – I asked
“Forget it…I and you are talking to each other right now…can you tell me how many communication channels right now we have between us?”
“You are talking to me and I am talking to you…so I guess just 1 for me and 1 for you” – I explained
“Well this is right…but if a third friend joins us”... My fried quizzing was continued…
“I guess 3” – I tried my best guess
“well it is also right” – he smiled
“..what if have another 1 friend with us”
“I guess 4” – I was confident
“Nope…you will have 6 communication channels” – my fried was smiling now
“How come?” – I was puzzled
“You know the importance of Communication. Today, the most dominated things if you see is information, and communicating of information is the main thing a person do day and night. We all know when we starts in IT sector we assume the only thing our Project Manager do is tell us do this and do that…. and he enjoy chatting, browsing and we do all coding/testing work.” – my fried continues his lectures with me (he has got this opportunity after a long time)
“Hmm…so how come a project manager has anything to do with Communication Chanel?”
“wait. I am coming to that point…Now as you progress and get experienced you realized that your Project Manager do the things which are far more important then our coding and testing stuffs…from many things he do, he spend most of his time in communication. Gathering information and distributing it to the relevant stakeholder. Some stats say he spends 90% of his time in communication.” – My friend continued
- I am listening with patience.
“Now when it comes to communication, the project manager should now how many communication channel he/she does have? To know this there is a very simple formula”
[N(N-1)]/2
Where N is the number of team members.”
“Ok so if we have 2 team members as per this formula we have 2(2-1)/2=1 communication channel” – I said with relief.
“Yes…now use the same formula and answer the 4 friend’s communication channel” – my friend insists
“Well it is 6” – I said with assurance (I knew the formula now.. J)
“That is right – always remember your communication channel”
“Do I need to count my Project manager also when I am calculating my communication channel” – I asked
“Yes you do. Take an example, let us say you have a team of 5 developers, 3 testers, 1 team lead and 1 project manager then total # of team member are (5+3+1+1)=10 and your communication channel as a project manager are 45” – my friend was blessing me with his knowledge.
I thank him for this info as this is great to know your COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
Communication Channel Formula = [N(N-1)]/2
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