Interaction and Communication: Constraints and Workspace Design

Communication constraints

Communication is the most important factor in the success or failure of the whole project. Communication can be difficult even when there’s only a few people, but it gets exponentially harder when more people are involved. When setting up a communication structure for a large team, we have to consider the following constraints:

• Direct communication is the safest form of communication, and we know immediately if the receiver of our message understood what we said. However, the more people involved in a communication effort, the harder it is to get a message across. One reason is that there will not be enough time for everybody to participate actively in the conversation. Another reason is that typically only a few extroverts will participate, whereas all the introverts will accept the message because they are uncomfortable discussing anything in big groups.
• Different sensory modalities:

...