The Context Machine: The Essence Is Context

In a series called The Context Machine I will summarize three years of looking for answers to the following question:

“If you are a Project Manager that operates for a short period of time in a foreign organization, with a global team you don’t know, in a domain you would not know, using virtual communication, high uncertainty, limited authority and part of what you do out in the open on the Internet, how do you make it all work?”

I recommend to read the first post before proceeding with this one.

To a guy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Or, perhaps more appropriate: to a shrink every problem is psychological.

I view projects as a set of social interactions. And because we all define problems, solutions and things in general from our belief system, I see most project events in terms of communication, culture and behavior.

In this post I will introduce the notion of “context” as essential element in communication and as attractor for social clustering. This post is very theoretical, but needed to understand the framework in the next post. I’ll promise to keep the other posts less abstract

Communication is the single most important element in people working together. We’ll need some concepts to discuss this topic in a virtual and global environment.

People cluster together. We form groups for economic and social reasons. What if we could use our natural tendency for social clustering as a way to drive teams? We would have a very powerful mechanism on our hands.

In this post I’ll make an attempt to explain how both elements come together with the introduction of “context”.

Each individual has a context. It’s made up of his experiences, his history and believes.
A group or organization has a context, which can be best viewed as its culture, the quest and history.

So. Projects are about interactions. And context is everything.

When you think about the words you are going to write, you have a certain mindset. You have experienced things; talked about stuff, you have a specific intent. Your context.

Then you just send the message.

A receiver picks it up. Looks at the sender and the text. If you are lucky, they will make an effort trying to “know you” and build up the context from cues you provide. If you aren’t that lucky they just see your name, and go “meh”. Stereotypes. Mind is already made up. All kinds of mechanisms to ensure there is a context alright, but it isn’t yours.

Each individual has a context. It’s made up of his experiences, his history and believes.

Others can attempt to reconstruct this context. They can do this

• by accessing publicly available information about someone (Google his name, word of mouth);
• by using cues that helps us interpret the context (If we see Dr. before a name, we know he’s smart. If he’s young, he must be naive. Cues don’t have to be that obvious and cliche);
• by asking questions directly to the sender of the message (saving the obvious for last).

Groups also have context.

A group or organization has a context, which can be best viewed as its culture, the quest and history. These are all powerful concepts when used in teams.

For projects we create goals, create an identity that the organization members want to be associated with. We create rituals, rules of engagements, language and visual cues that turn a collection of individuals into a tight and focused group. A group with a purpose. A group that feels special and a little different from the rest of the organization.

To run efficient virtual teams you really have to go through all the elements that make up this group, and communicate the digitally. You have to identify commonalities between the group members that strengthen the group. Use this to emphasize a group identity. Adopt common language that sets the team apart from other teams.

Context As Selection

An exciting project, a WOW project, will attract certain individuals. What one thinks is a hot cause, another individual might find boring. A public declaration of cause and culture functions as an attractor for “the right people”. If you fill a sink with water and when it’s full you pull the plug, all the water will spiral towards one point. Automatically. Just because the proper conditions are created.

Context is not only an element in effective communication, but it works also as a social clustering mechanism.

Not everyone can join a group. There is some door policy. The context of the individual determines if he may enter or not. Does the group think are you a good match?

Context is a mechanism for selection.

Creation Of Reputation

Every project that is performed adds to the history of the organization and the individuals. Projects create (or more appropriate) add to the context.

Successful projects enhance a persons reputation. A reputation can be considered as publicly available information about the context of a person or organization. This used to be primary word of mouth, but in our digital world you can also view this as it’s digital footprint.

Summary

• Each individual has a context. It’s made up of his experiences, his history and believes;
• A group or organization has a context, which can be best viewed as its culture, the quest and history;
• Receivers attempt to reconstruct the senders context when interpreting a message;
• Context works as a selection mechanism to attract individuals to an organization and when adding people to groups;
• The actual performance of projects add to the context of organization and individual.

Next up: The Context Machine