Which communication tool to use?

Dave Pollard has drawn a decision tree showing the minefield of communication methods and their appropriateness to different situations. It's aimed at larger organisations.

His was long and thin to fit his blog format. I put the top and bottom side by side. It looks something like this:

His destination nodes (the lozenges) are: email; commercial groupware; wiki; e-learning tool; 'room' videoconferencing; weblog; face-to-face meeting; instant messaging; commercial desktop video; free desktop video; audio teleconference and discussion forum.

He also discusses barriers to effective communication, like: habit; personality; physical layout; ignorance and unavailability.

Comments

[Ron Perrella]

Excellent chart. I would also have to add politics to this chart as well as the pros/cons of having a written record of the conversation. In many "political" discussions, it is necessary to avoid written discussions, especially email, since anything you write can and will be forwarded.

[David Tebbutt]

Absolutely right. I advocate open space by a fountain for this kind of thing.

And the danger is not only forwarding messages, but also the fact that the originals are captured in perpetuity (subject, maybe, to the company's record retention policies) and are then available to anyone (especially regulators) who wants to investigate.