How Can Communications Help Project Managers?

We all know how important communications are for projects. We have all been told that having good communication skills is the most important skill set of all for a project manager. Also, it is true that all projects in crisis – projects that are failing - almost always have big communications problems. What the I.T. project manager may not appreciate includes:

• The importance of planning and documenting the plans for all communications with the stakeholders. The plan must detail the frequency, methodology, and format, of communications, with special attention paid to the importance of staying closely in touch with upper management and ensuring that they are comfortable with the project’s performance.
• Following up and ensuring team members and stakeholders did receive the messages, and we are really on the same page. It is the PM’s responsibility to follow through on this. It is not good enough just to send out a clearly written message, and assume everyone got it, and did understand.

• Sending the right amount of detail, and putting it in the right format. As technical people, we may think that more details are always good. We might not realize that a very detailed report to a senior manager might not be read at all, leaving the manager with an unfavorable opinion of our approach (and therefore of the project!). We need to be conscious of the times when it is best just to send the “executive summary.”

• Recognizing that in face-to-face meetings, it is essential to pay close attention to the body language and tone of voice. PMI says in such communications, the words themselves are only 7 percent of the message. This is very hard for most analytics to accept.

• As mentioned above for Scope definition, we need to realize there will be times when we think we have communicated a very precise, specific and accurate message, but other stakeholders might not have come away with the same understanding. It is our job to ensure everyone reaches a common understanding, by repetitively asking the right questions and teasing out any nuances in the different understandings.

• We need to follow the best practices for meetings:

- Send an agenda in advance of the meeting.

- Delegate responsibilities for agenda items where feasible.

- Have time limits for the agenda items.

- Keep to the agenda, and stay on time. PM may need to interrupt and have conversations continued “off-line.”

- Track minutes and publish the minutes.

- Track action items, owners, dates and status.

- Publish the action items and status.

- Meet regularly, but not too often. Don’t meet just for the sake of meeting.

- Have the right stakeholders at the meeting.

In the nutshell, we have looked at a couple of the natural tendencies of I.T. project managers, and seen that they do not naturally match up well with skill sets needed in requirements analysis and scope definition, and also in communications management. So, if we recognize these limitations, we can take steps to take corrective actions, and improve on our skill sets in these areas. Thus, PMP prep courses help managers to gain all these skills. In our next article, we will also look at skill sets needed in human resource management and team development, as well as, skill sets needed in monitoring and controlling processes. Again, as you might guess, the natural tendencies of the analytic, I.T. project manager, probably do not match up perfectly with the skill sets most often cited as fundamental for these areas. Stay tuned!

In the next article will discuss how they do with human resource management (managing teams), and monitoring and controlling processes.