Effective project communication

Much of a project manager’s time is spent communicating, and the PMBOK® and CAPM® books refer to three communication methods.

In your initial post (1 page length), respond to the following:

• What does effective project communication mean to you?
• Why are some methods considered formal or informal?
• Discuss challenges that you have encountered while communicating with stakeholders; based on what you have learned, how you would you go about improving communication if you were the project manager?

Support your reasoning with PMI® principles.

In your responses to your peers (one paragraph for each answer), compare and contrast your responses and experiences. What ideas can you offer to your peers to improve the communication experiences they have identified?

POST 1:

Hello Class!

Communication in project management is a critical piece to ensure all stakeholders and team members are aware of things going on and have a space to give feedback.  Having a plan, managing and monitoring communication come together in to assure solid communication throughout your projects.

Effective communication to me means that you communicate the progress through the appropriate channels and are consistent in bringing critical updates to stakeholders. Communication through various teams involved can be managed through the communication plan, where we set out what, when and whom communications are shared. I do think there is an aspect of over-communication, which can lead to stakeholders not seeing what is important to them and we should be careful to effectively communicate the necessary information to the right people. Effective communication also means that you communicate professionally and clearly in regards to the project.

Some methods of communication or considered formal (like email) or informal (like slack messaging system), which need to be considered when communication is needed. Is this a formal update to stakeholders that should be emailed or is a simple message sent to a few individuals ok for questions or status updates? Identifying the appropriate way to communicate and when is key.

Communication for me has been the area I have been focusing on over the last 6 months since I have taken on several projects with my company. We use a messaging system, Slack, for just about everything and we create channels for stakeholder transparency and communication through the project. While this is a good system, I also recognized that not all stakeholders were paying attention to the channel since there was quite a bit of chatter and it could be difficult for them to identify what information they should keep up with. Once I identified this area of concern, I created a weekly or bi-weekly status update email that is sent out with links to more in-depth information if the stakeholder wanted to dive in more. This has been working nicely and I can ensure that all stakeholders have the information they need.

As a PM, it is very important we get this piece of the puzzle right. “Project managers spend most of their time communicating with team members and other project stakeholders, both internal (at all organizational levels) and external to the organization. Effective communication builds a bridge between diverse stakeholders who may have different cultural and organizational backgrounds as well as different levels of expertise, perspectives, and interests” (Project Management Institute, 2017).

References: 

Project Management Institute. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(R) Guide–Sixth Edition / Agile Practice Guide Bundle: Vol. Sixth edition. Project Management Institute.”

POST 2:

Hello everyone,

Communication has been a theme that has been included in a few of my posts already, and I think it’s for good reason. I truly believe that one cannot have too much communication. While communication can take place in many different forms, communication from the perspective of a PM is an essential function to do when in this type of position. Being able to communicate with vendors, leads, various stakeholders, etc. it is imperative to the success of the project to make sure everyone is on the same page, especially in the event of work being done concurrently. Communication is really at the foundation of all things. Communication skills are vital to successful project integration as the key pieces of the project come together per the project management plan (Johnson, 2017, p.394).

Some methods can be seen as formal or informal. In my experience communication methods like this (as they pertain to project management) would include communication with traceability in things like the change log, issue log, lessons learned register, quality reports, risk reports, and any work performance reports. Where as, informal communication could be things like phone calls, instant messages, texts, and in some cases maybe emails. I think email could technically fall under both.

For projects that I have worked on, the parties involved don’t always agree and one can clearly see nonverbal communication patterns come up. When one is in charge or even taking part in a meeting like this, some people are more interested than others, some people are willing to pay attention to what everyone has to say, and some people hear what they want to hear. One of the things that I have learned in my time of leading meetings or participating in meetings is the ability to listen. I don’t think that is something that everyone does as good as they should. I am a firm believer in the notion that not all conversations will have agreement and sometime healthy disagreement can take place in a professional and respectful manner.

Thank you for your time this week, and I hope you all have a good week!

References

Johnson, T. (2018).  Crosswind success series: CAPM exam bootcamp manual. (version 6). Carrollton, TX: Crosswind Project”