From the course: Project Management Foundations: Communication

Simple charts

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Communication

Simple charts

“

- Simple sketches are a powerful tool for complex ideas. You'll want your reports to communicate well to everyone. Some of your stakeholders will be visual thinkers, so they'll have a much easier time reading your report if you include some simple sketches. A sketch can be a chart, graph, or even a small figure. A smiley face is a good way to show a happy outcome. A bar chart shows comparisons. A light bulb is an easy way to show an idea. These are all simple sketches that communicate ideas quickly and effectively. A sketch can take advantage of the context. The reader can intuitively see how each idea fits into your report, even with something simple like a smiley face over a dollar bill. So your sketch doesn't need extra information. You don't have to write out "increase profits" or "How happy are you with your stay?" This keeps your reports brief. In this report, the smiley face communicates a happy outcome, the dollar bill communicates profits. This small sketch takes advantage of your readers' understanding that increased profits leads to a positive outcome. Anyone who's used instant messaging knows how much you can communicate with a little emoji, even though what you're saying has a different context. A sketch is also the best way to show relative differences. It's much easier to see how concepts relate to each other. A pie chart shows the parts of a whole. A bar chart can show relative sizing. These sketches are usually easier to understand than percentages and ratios. A sketch can also be the best way to show complex relationships. Imagine you're creating a report for a database migration. Here you can show just an image of the data server with five arrows pointing to new servers. A clear sketch will also invite discussion. If you're a project manager, you already probably realize the power of whiteboards. A few simple sketches on the whiteboard are a quick way to start a discussion. You can take this same concept and apply it to all of your reports. People will often ask to explain a confusing sketch over confusing text. If someone reads confusing text, they'll assume they misread it, but if someone sees a confusing diagram, they're more likely to ask for an explanation. Finally, an interesting sketch can hold your readers' attention. A few well placed sketches will give your readers something interesting to think about. You can test this yourself by including some colorful charts in your report, then hand a copy to your team member and you'll notice that they'll flip through all the pages of text and stop for a second when they see the diagram. Those few extra seconds are giving you just a little bit more of their attention.

Contents