DQM Basic Units
Communication Skills cheat sheet
Every chapter's key points, formulas and definitions on one page, for the last week before the exam. Each heading links to the chapter that explains it.
Foundations of communication
- Communication runs from a sender who forms and encodes an idea, through a channel, to a receiver who decodes it and responds with feedback, and noise can distort the message at any point.
- Effective communication is clear, complete, concise, correct, courteous and concrete.
- The five barriers are physical, semantic (language), psychological, organisational and cultural; the usual test is naming the one a workplace situation illustrates.
- Communication flows downward, upward, horizontally between peers, and diagonally across levels and departments at once, which is common where a quality function cuts across the whole organisation.
- Feedback is the only way a sender knows a message landed, so seek it deliberately rather than assuming silence means agreement.
Key terms
- Verbal communication
- Spoken or written words, the most direct carrier of meaning.
- Non-verbal communication
- Body language, tone of voice, facial expression and space, which often carries as much weight as the words themselves.
- Physical barriers
- Distance, poor connectivity, noise in the environment.
- Semantic (language) barriers
- Technical jargon or ambiguous wording understood differently by sender and receiver.
- Psychological barriers
- Stress, prejudice, or a closed attitude toward the message.
- Organisational barriers
- Too many reporting layers, unclear channels, or information arriving too late to act on.
- Cultural barriers
- Differing norms of directness, formality or gesture between parties.
- Downward
- From supervisor to subordinate: instructions, standards, feedback.
- Upward
- From subordinate to supervisor: progress reports, non-conformances, concerns.
- Horizontal
- Between peers or departments at the same level, coordinating shared work.
- Diagonal
- Across levels and departments at once, common where a quality function cuts across the whole organisation.
- Internal sources
- Colleagues, supervisors, records, minutes and the organisation's own procedures and standards.
- External sources
- Customers, suppliers, regulators, professional bodies and published standards.
- Open questions
- Invite a full answer rather than yes or no, useful for exploring an issue.
- Closed questions
- Confirm a specific fact quickly, useful for checking understanding.
- Probing questions
- Follow up an answer to get beneath a surface response, common when investigating a non-conformance.
- Clarifying questions
- Check that what was heard is what was meant, before acting on it.
- Objective
- What the communication is meant to achieve.
- Audience
- Who the message is for, and what they already know.
- Message
- The core content to be conveyed.
- Channel
- The medium best suited to the message and audience (see Medium of communication).
- Timing
- When the message should reach its audience to still be useful.
- Feedback mechanism
- How the sender will know the message was received and understood.
The rest of the sheet covers
- Communication strategies
- Communication channels
- Putting strategy into practice
- Interviews
- Group discussions
- Presentations
- Exam technique and revision
- Glossary