How to communicate to senior management of the company effectively?

There are many points those need to keep in mind while you are communicating with senior managers.

1. Most importantly to understand the business and customers of the organization and respect them.
   


2. You should be aware about prospective/concerns of the senior manager.
   


3. You need to have a much broader focus when communicating with senior management than you would when communicating to rest of employees.
   


4. As time plays major factor in communication, as soon as you can communicate your ideas/ problems to managers, you are doing one thing right in order to communicate effectively. Moral : “focus on the most critical things you need to tell a senior manager”.
   


5. If you are communicating in writing the gist / intent should be clear enough in first 2-4 lines and if you are communicating verbally then it should be clear with in first few mins say 1 min.
   


6. Over communication is major problem among the team members while they communicate to their managers, many senior managers discard the information if it’s too much.
   


7. Prepare a list or outlines of the points those you want to make.
   


8. Feel free to take your notes with you and refer to them. That just shows you are organized and you have put thought into using your managers' time efficiently.
   


9. If they ask you something that you don't have the answer to, don't panic. Just tell them you'll check on it and give them an answer later. It would be better if you can give time bound answers like “I'll give answer in next 1 hr or later today etc..”.
   


10. One major problem i have seen that team members don't verify their EMails or messages If they are communicating in writing, So write out your messages / MoMs or e-mail but DON'T SEND IT until you have re-read it and edited it(if required).
    


11. Remember that the way you use language reflects your attitudes and your respect for the audience.
    


12. Be an effective Listener by understanding the complexities of listening, prepare to listen, Focus on each and every points, delay judgment, establish eye contact with the speaker, take notes effectively and encourage others to talk.
    


13. If you are technical person then don't give your judgment very early. Generally people say its not possible, we can't do it, we should not do it, how this task will be done, etc etc.
    
    
    Apart from above points YOU MUST UNDERSTAND / RESPECT THE GIVEN DEADLINES BY YOU TO MANAGER or MANAGER TO YOU for the given tasks. Because using these deadlines / timelines your managers plan further activities and business plans.

Scrum is Good but there must be some drawbacks / disadvantages in Scrum. What are they ?

As far as i know Its hard to get into Scrum and its implementation in the organization is also hard. Because some people in the team or management would not be ready or willing to accept it.

Any other things ???

In Scrum, there are three primary roles:

1. Product Owner
2. Scrum Team
3. Scrum Master

The Product Owner is mainly responsible for gaining maximum business value, by gathering all the inputs from the customer and what should be produced to end user of the product. These inputs could be from Team Members and stakeholders. After gathering all inputs from customer / team members or stakeholders Product Owner translates them into a prioritized list.

In some cases, the Product Owner and the customer are the same person; in
other cases, the customer might actually be millions of different people with a variety of needs.

The Product Owner role could map to the Product Manager or Product Marketing Manager position in many organizations.

The Scrum Team develop the product / project that the customer is going to use: (Software or website / web application)

For example. The team in Scrum should be “cross-functional”.
A team in Scrum is typically five to ten people, although teams as large as 15 and as small as 3 report benefits, and for a software project the team might include analysts, core developers,UI designers, and testers.

The ScrumMaster is one of the most important elements of Scrum success. The
ScrumMaster does whatever is in their power to help the team be successful.

for More info : read my previous article.
scrum-master-n-responsible

Scrum Master is responsible for a successfull Scrum in the organization

In Agile methodology, Scrum master is a new role who is having new roles and responsibilities. Basically He or she is mainly responsible for enforcing Scrum rules and practices to make it happen in the organization.
A Scrum Master is link between management and the team. Actually SM represents management to the team and a team to the management.

SM is a part of the scrum team and anyone can be a Scrum Master who knows about the Scrum practices, rules and its fragrance.
Sprint pre-planning meeting, Sprint planning meeting, Daily Scrum meeting and Retrospective meeting are the main meetings in the scrum and Scrum master is responsible to make them happen along with team and product owner. Each meeting has its goal and practices and those should be followed by all attendees.