The Welch Company
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Communication Metrics


Communication Metrics is a management science that integrates new technology and skills for an intelligence process to aid managers and other knowledge work. Limited time increases reliance on talking and reduces analysis, causing information overload. Constant meetings, calls and email overwhelm human cognition, causing mistakes, bumbling, stress and conflict. This makes communication the biggest risk in enterprise. Every meeting, every call, every email sows the seeds of error and crisis. This presents an opportunity to gain competitive advantage by adding intelligence for proactive risk management. Automation saves time and integrates analysis into the work stream so that mistakes are avoided. Better understanding and follow up make communication productive and improve earnings, with less paperwork, stress and conflict.
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Rod Welch implements Communication Metrics on assignment.

Intelligence ensures effective listening that solves information overload with technology and skills to organize, align and analyse critical details, obtain feedback, plan and follow up. Technology that connects summary to detail and aligns communication with orginal sources improves accuracy and saves time. These two ingredients -- saving time and accuracy -- improve productivity, and thus provide a form of TQM for managers. Managers can maintain shared meaning by delivering intelligence on the Internet that is fast and easy to use in a paperless environment. Dispute resolution is supported by an automated history of cause and effect. Reducing paperwork, mistakes and conflict saves time and money.
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POIMS technology supports automated integration of management tasks.
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Peter Drucker says "managing" is becoming more complex. This new reality at the dawn of the 21st century reduces the time to manage critical details that impact cost and earnings. Faster, better, cheaper intelligence solves information overload.
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Andy Grove , CEO of Intel Corporation, says new realities require new work roles and practices.
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Background on the need for a new management science is reported on Mar 27, 1995. Using the Internet to deliver intelligence was formulated on Nov 5, 1997.
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 Managing is Communicating

Managers like to communicate by talking and pictures. Experts teach that talking, listening, pictures and graphs yield fast and easy "understanding." Conventional technology supports traditional practice and training with fax, cellular phones, Powerpoint pictures, the Internet and now video conferencing that feed mental perception of sight and sound. However, the constant stream of meetings, calls, email and documents causes information overload...
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people do not have time to think


Communication fails when information overload exceeds span of attention. People cannot "think" fast enough to create the mental connections of cause and effect that yield understanding, essential for planning and follow up.
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SDS technology under POIMS is a powerful advance on using the alphabet that makes it faster and easier to create connections of related chronologies, and retrieve them when needed. Thus, thinking and memory are enhanced.
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Limited span of attention causes mistakes, stress, conflict and loss due to rework. The cost of daily rework is hidden by positive sounding labels like "problem handling" and "expediting." Managers become good problem handlers, expediters and fixers, because they are constantly fixing mistakes, commonly expressed as...

Why is this always happening to me?

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Big mistakes result when sight and sound create emotionally charged impressions that lead to action unsupported by intelligence, due to limited span of attention. Reliance on talking and pictures without intelligence causes the malady of false knowledge. Henry Kissinger calls this Alice in Wonderland management, because people have strong views but do not know why, due to the disconnect between cause and effect, when talking and pictures are absorbed without intelligence.
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When people do not have time to think, problems are initially denied; later mistakes and losses are explained away as...

Murphy's Law


...because, up until now, better practices, training and technology have not been available to provide intelligence that expands span of attention.
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Therefore, a new management science is needed that integrates technology and work practices to expand span of attention so that communication has fewer mistakes and greater effect in the age of the Information Highway.
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 Communication Metrics Adds "Intelligence" to Information

Clear, concise, complete communication is a continual process of adding intelligence to information that organizes, analyses, and aligns cause and effect. Intelligence connects summary to detail so that managers can absorb a lot of information quickly without losing context, correlations, implications and nuance. This process yields the key ingredients of good management: knowledge, wisdom and vision, or more simply intellectual capital.
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POIMS meets this requirement by leveraging basic human mental processes.

Communication Metrics offers a theory of investing intellectual capital to replace managing by guess and gossip under "Murphy's Law." The theory is supported by proven methodologies for... clear, concise, complete communication

knowledge space

meaning drift

concurrent discovery

organic subject structure

automated integration of time and information ..
Communication Metrics uses technology and a new work role to ensure that good management practices are used consistently. New realities of faster information technology and globalization of markets impair good practices due to the lack of time. The solution is stronger tools and attention to communication feedback, alignment and time management processes for planning and follow up based on ideas from the emerging field of Cognitive Science.
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Combining this new methodology with the Internet, provides a breakthrough that has here-to-fore escaped practitioners and technologists in the quest to meaningfully improve management with clear, concise and complete communication.
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 Benefits of Intelligence

Since communication is central to all management activity, adding intelligence to information improves every facet of business life. Reduction in cost and time for paper handling alone is a significant savings. Major improvement also occurs in the following traditional problem areas... meetings
planning, preparation and follow up
build and maintain shared meaning (i.e., leadership)
align work performed with objectives, requirements, policy, commitments...
decision support, obtain relevant history when needed
proactive problem handling avoids mistakes, rework, litigation, losses ..
 Implementation and Cost Savings

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) issued a report for guidance on procurement of Communication Metrics. The report cites findings by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) based on a pilot test in 1994. In a second report, the Corps of Engineers calculated cost savings in the range of 10:1; and, suggest that the Communications Department be upgraded to provide business metrics for communication. Strategic Planning, Program Management and Executive support, e.g., the Chief Operating Officer (COO), can, also, sponsor this new role.
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"Intelligence" is a new role for business, as shown in the prototype scope of services. It takes leadership to discover how it fits with existing culture and work practices. Start with major events, for example weekly staff meetings, or progress meetings on projects. These meetings typically cover a wide range of subjects that impact earnings, and there is strong recognition from professional liturature, seminars and daily experience that meetings need support to ensure that initiatives are accurately and uniformly understood, and that timely follow up occurs to take action.
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As reported by USACE, a Communication Manager creates and maintains intelligence resources, on the Internet. People can obtain "intelligence" by email -- click to see an example and for another example. They can provide feedback by email, which is integrated into the record for alignment and updating Action Item status. Within a few weeks, the process is helping everyone. People are prepared and things are getting done without mistakes, because relevant details are readily available, and people are using common understandings, which is the goal of communication, i.e., to build and maintain shared meaning aligned with requirements.
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Andy Grove found that analysis improved understanding at Intel. Using "intelligence" technology with the Internet should make better understanding and follow up more widely available at less cost.
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Contact Rod Welch (415 781 5700) for more on implementation.
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Updated: Dec 31, 1999