In project management, one of the most important areas of skill is in communication management. It includes the necessary processes to ensure the project information is generated, collected, distributed, stored and organised in an appropriate and timely manner.
Communication skills required by project managers and their teams include active listening, the ability to ask questions, seek ideas and scenarios, team guidance, investigate facts, and persuade those involved to take action, to name a few.
This is according to Ian Huntly, CEO of Rifle-Shot Performance Holdings and Adalberto Pupp, market and product Manager at SoftExpert for PPM / HDM solutions.
Let’s take a step back and set the scene.
When a project team get together, there are a number of factors at play:
* Different people i.e. roles are brought together – business people, consultants, technical people, super users, end-users, project managers, project sponsors, project owners, stakeholders and so on.
How are these roles brought together:
* Resources are brought on board the project full time and part time;
* They have never been on a project before;
* They are strangers to each other;
* Their work day job description has changed temporarily;
* They are removed from their comfort zones;
* They report to “someone” else; and
* A different mix of roles and personalities is brought together.
What are these resources experiencing:
* They are strangers in the project environment;
* They do not fully understand what they have to do or how to do it;
* They do not know the new person they are reporting to;
* They worry about their normal work day’s activities;
* Project terminology is strange to them;
* The new software is unknown to them;
* The project processes are new to them; and
* They wonder whether they will be able to achieve what they are tasked to do.
The aim of communication is to help every team member understand their role and function in the project. They need to understand the objective / goals of the project and they need to know the ‘rules of engagement’ and project processes for the duration of the project.
This happens in a structured fashion. It is not a grey area or something that cannot be touched or seen. The nature of this structured approach has a purpose and that purpose is to bring every team member on board as quickly and efficiently as possible to ensure the success of the project.
The Project Charter contains the governance for communication at all levels and is agreed by all parties involved.
To communicate the Project Charter governance, it is imperative that a formal Project Kick Off takes place. In this way, all project participants receive the same information at the same time regarding communication, be it a change request note or the expectation of certain meetings, etc. Following the Kick Off, it the project manager’s responsibility to ensure communication takes place as agreed in the Project Charter.
Project communication management
Project managers may spend excessive amounts of time communicating with the team, with stakeholders, clients and sponsors. For such, one must keep in mind that project communication management requires great dedication by project managers to maintain all those involved and to maintain uniformity of information in addition to obtaining an unequalled understanding regarding the objectives and progress of activities.
It is important for all those involved to understand how communication directly affects projects. Communication management consumes approximately 75% to 90% of project manager’s time.
Why so much concern for communication?
Communication management is simply one of the areas of knowledge necessary in the overall management of a project and concern for communication has its reasons:
* Information is the basis for project management and should be treated with the same rigor and discipline as technical knowledge.
* Projects are activities carried out by people for people in teams who need to communicate and understand the reasons and objectives of the different activities that these projects involve so that all can support the common goals.
* Friction, frustration, inefficiencies, lack of understanding of requirements, doubts regarding change requests, missed deadlines are but a few symptoms of breakdown in communication during the project process.
Main components of the communication model
The main components of project communication are:
* Encoder – is intended to translate thoughts or ideas into a language that is understood by all those involved in the projects;
* Decoder – is intended to convert the message into thoughts or significant ideas;
* Message and feedback – the result of the encoding and decoding;
* Means – the method used to transmit the message. In other words, to determine the most effective and efficient methods used to transmit the message so that the understanding may be complete and address the various personality types and their preferred communication modalities;
* Noise – to determine the factors that interfere in the transmission and the comprehension of the message and to proactively clarify divergences. The total impact of a message is made up of 7% words, 38% tone of voice and 55% facial expressions.
Communication barriers
With regards to communication barriers there are many additional factors, some of which are shown below, that may have a direct impact on projects:
* Lack of clear communication channels;
* The speed of speech and the rhythm of thought;
* Physical distance or the amount of time between the issuer and receiver;
* Inadequate use of technical language;
* Factors in the surroundings that might cause distraction;
* Harmful attitudes such as disbelief and prejudice;
* Excessive information;
* Lack of knowledge regarding the subject that is being communicated; and
* Cultural differences.
Who is who in communication?
When we talk about communication it is important to know who is who in this process regarding a specific project. For such, the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) helps us direct this communication using a simple definition of relationships.
Learning about existing communication channels
PMBOK is used to determine the number of communication channels required and this in turn is calculated according to the number of people involved in the project.
Stakeholder analysis
It is important to analyse the stakeholders for successful communication management and for it to directly involve those involved in the project.
The following stages are used in order to determine a better analysis of project stakeholders:
* Identify all potential stakeholders and respective information such as roles, departments and interests;
* Identify the impact upon, or support from each stakeholder in order to define approach strategies such as the degree of power and interest, degree of power and influence and degree of influence and impact;and
* Evaluate probable reactions or answers by stakeholders in certain situations.
Conclusion
From 75% to 90% of the project manager’s work is related to communication management. How can we affirm this? All the work developed throughout the project involves communication at any stage. Communication is the basis for the success of a project and is fundamental to integrate all stakeholders.
It is also essential in order to meet the expectations of each one of these stakeholders in a broad view of project management.
The elaboration of the Communication Management Plan can and should follow processes that identify stakeholders, plan communications, distribute information, manage stakeholder expectations and report project performance. We can therefore affirm that communication is essential for project success.