The international Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) is a regular forum for the full-day version of the Communicating to Decision Makers workshop. RAMS usually provides some of the most diverse and technically savvy audiences. The symposium includes industry sectors such as aerospace, defense, automotive, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and consumer products. One year, a rowdy UK-based team showed up from Hewlett Packard. Another year, we had the head of reliability for the Australian Navy.
Communicating with FINESSE is the mnemonic for making it easier to remember how to get your boss's boss to understand. The FINESSE fishbone diagram provides the seven critical elements for success: Frame, Illustrations, Noise reduction, Empathy, Structure, Synergy, and Ethics. Whether corporate sessions or as part of professional conferences, participants work through an active problem from their work to enhance the learning experience and yield a tangible work product.
So what happened this year at RAMS? Well, technical professionals tend to relate most of their problems to equipment failures or chemical, biological, or physics processes gone awry. This year, every problem from home is related to a business process issue. Are technical professionals becoming less gearheads and more business case managers? We will see in future workshops.
JD Solomon, Inc provides training workshops for organizations and their technical professionals who are trying to be more effective in communicating with executive management. Two-hour modules, half-day, and full-day options are provided as extensions to services provided to our existing clients. See our book tab for more information.
