Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
mail that he or she has deleted, he or she asks the sender to resend
it.
Receiver retains
. This is the policy that most organizations are
operating. This is the reason why people save or archive messages
in their in-boxes, and rarely save or archive their Sent folders. This
may also be driven by the thinking that the sender “knows” what
he has sent but that he is less familiar with what he receives.
Both retain
. Less coordination is required. As disk space and local
search become cheaper, this may be a non-issue.
Subject lines in e-mails are difficult to populate effectively. The fact
that it is called a “subject” line does not always help. If one is attaching
minutes of a meeting, should one say “Attaching Minutes” (SenderAction
and Object), or “Review Minutes” (ReceiverAction and Object), or just
“Minutes” (Object only). SenderAction is easier because the sender knows
what he is doing, and it avoids complexity when there are multiple
ReceiverActions required. If one is conveying status, a simple sender-based
statement may be sufficient — for example, “Approval received for Release
3 requirements.”
Replying to e-mails rather than responding separately maintains a
thread. That is obvious and is useful to the sender who expects a reply.
Responding to an e-mail separately carries the risk of not being recognized
as the response expected. This can happen when there is a subtle change
in the sub-e-mail channel used. As an example, when someone asks for
a presentation, instead of attaching it, one opens the presentation and
uses the facility in the presentation tool to forward it as an attachment.
This changes the subject line. If the requestor was expecting a reply to
his or her e-mail, he or she may mistake this as a different presentation
for a different thread, and not the one for which he or she was waiting.
Any communication that becomes too routine tends to get ignored.
Vary the frequency and content of the communication so that the receiver
gets interested enough to open the e-mail. Everyone is getting over-
whelmed by the volume of e-mail, and cutting through the clutter is also
the sender's responsibility.
Action Items
Action items are another popular artifact of the managing process. People
are taking action items away from meetings. Managers are maintaining
action item lists. They are obviously useful — if handled correctly.
Action items are just that. They must have some action associated
with an item. As such, they are best written as “verb and object” pairs:
