Long and frustrating day. That's how I'd describe today.

We had 2 simple projects to create and edit html invites then send them out as an email. I explained what needed to be done to my designer and I made sure that he understood… well I thought I did. I did that by giving him step-by-step instruction and then confirm that he knew what I was talking about by asking "Do you understand?"

He replied "yes."

So I gave him more directions to take care of the project and deliver it. He said "ok."

Few hours later, I got a call from my boss telling me that the projects were not done and we're having a big problem. 

The designer who was supposed to get the projects done have left for the day and the designer who continues the work doesn't know how to handle it. So we had to start over from scratch again. Projects that were supposed to take 2 hours max, took us over 10 hours. I don't even know how that happened.

What I do know is, DO NOT ask the question "Do you understand?" to assess if your employee or student understand. Having someone with authority ask that question is intimidating and the expected response is to nod and say "yes". If you really want to know, ask the person to rephrase what s/he understand and ask questions based on what they say. 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 8:42 pm and is filed under learning, work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.