- Communication overview
- Communication theory
- Communication processes &
skills
- Communicating for effect
- Useful External Web-links &
Resources.
Other related sections of the PMKI:
- Stakeholder engagement
- Resource management
(HR & Teams)
Communication
management involves managing the information assets of the
project and the organization including all aspects of:
creating, collecting, distributing, storing, retrieving
and ultimately the disposition of project information. As
part of this process, there are frequently legal
obligations associated with privacy, security of
information, and the retention of information that should
be considered. This subject is focused on making
appropriate and necessary information available to project
stakeholders in a timely manner and responding to other
requests for information. Depending on the stakeholder,
information needs to be communicated at the strategic
level as well as at the specific task performance level.
Effective communications requires an understanding of:
Communication is more than just the words in a message, how the words are delivered is at least as important in conveying the message.
Art: Stop the world I want to get off. Far too many good ideas are hidden in a fog of academic prose, technical jargon and/or dense, complex writing as this light hearted paper demonstrates -this is a mistake we try hard to avoid in our writing.
To communicate properly, you need to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.
Step 1: Identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the current situation. Lessons learned from past communications exercises help.
Step 2: Determine your communications objectives. Identify the key objectives that you want to achieve from your project communications.
Step 3: Develop your formal communications guidelines for controlling communications within your project. These may be mandated by the organizations for formal communication, but don't forget the power of informal channels as well.
Step 4: Define exactly who your team will formally communicate with. Formal communications promote a single consistent view of your project to a specified audience so that everyone has the same version of the truth.
Step 5: Now focus on specific stakeholder needs. These stakeholders will require focused information that is specific to their role in the project designed to manage your relationship with them.
Step 6: List the key messages that need to be sent to each Stakeholder and how you will deliver each message to them, through a delivery channel.
Step 7: Choose a delivery Channel for each stakeholder, these can be formal, informal direct or indirect, the key is to ensure the message gets through.
Step 8: Plan your communication schedule: activities and actions that are required to deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time throughout the project. Include communication events in the project schedule, specify the time frames for completion and any dependencies on other events in the schedule. Report on communication in the same way as any other project task!
Step 9: Detail management. define the purpose of each communication, how it will take place and when it should occur. Identify who will manage them and who will review their effectiveness. Monitor the effect of your communication on stakeholders ask "is it working?". and take appropriate action.
Art: Communication planning. Communication planning is an essential element in crafting a communication strategy that will work to support the success of the project.
Our
Communication
Worksheet is a practical Excel template for
establishing and monitoring the routine reporting and
communication requirements of a project or program - see
more.
This model is an engineering model, and was developed to explain data communications. It can be used to explain personal communication.
WP: Communication
Theory. To make communication effective,
careful thought has to be given to the choice of media and
message, how the message will be delivered (and who will
deliver it) and the best writing, or presentation style to
use based on the personality of the person you wish to
communicate with. This paper provides the framework for
effective communication.
Art: The Costs of Quality in Communication. Fit for purpose project communications and reports provide each stakeholder with the information they need.
Art: Data to Wisdom – Creating and Managing Knowledge. The processes and documents used to transform raw data into the knowledge needed for wise decisions from a project controls perspective.
Art: Project Reports and the PMBOK. The PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition included a significant refinement in the way project data is transformed into useful project reports. The flow from raw data to useful reports (processed information) is fairly well defined; these concepts are refined and expanded in the 6th Edition.
Art: Reporting is not Communicating. Reporting and communicating are not the same! Simply sending out information in a large complex document has very little to do with effective communication.
PP: Beyond Reporting - The Communication Strategy. Reporting and communicating are not the same! At the very least, for a communication to be complete, the sender needs to know the message has been received and understood.
Blg: Effective Communication = Effective Project Stakeholder Management.The project’s stakeholder engagement and communication planning needs to develop an overall strategy for these two closely linked processes and then identify appropriate tactics to maximise the probability of achieving a successful project outcome.
Art: ‘Not knowing’ is no longer an option. Effective governance and management requires timely access to ACCURATE information.
Including
papers on the processes, tools, reports and other
processes needed to plan, collect, create, distribute,
store, and ultimately archive or dispose of project
information. Communication is the only way to influence
and direct the work, or behaviour, of others, therefore,
project manager should spend 80% to 90% of his/her time
communicating. The first part of this section looks at
process, followed by some of the communication skills
needed by successful project managers.
Making
Projects Work: Effective Stakeholder and
Communication Management. Dr.
Lynda Bourne: Projects are performed by people for
people, with the key determinants of success being the
relationships between project teams and project
stakeholders. This web of relationships will either enable
or obstruct the flow of information between people and, as
a consequence, will largely determine project success or
failure. See more.
PP: Understanding Design - The challenge of informed consent. The need to communicate effectively is a vital component of leadership. You cannot lead people if they don’t understand you; ‘blind trust’ only works if the solution is straightforward. When problems arise, uninformed trust evaporates; whereas informed consent from committed followers is more enduring, and people are likely to support any efforts to work through to a solution to the problem.
Art: Have we communicated? “The major problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred”. This paper looks at some of the language problems in communication.
PP: Controls Communicate? Data in a control tool is useless until it is communicated in the right way to the right people to help manage the project.
Art: Stakeholder’s Don’t Understand Numbers! Project controls processes and project reports are full of numbers and calculations and one would think that most project stakeholders, particularly senior managers, would see and understand the numbers in the same way. Unfortunately resent research suggests this is not the case.
Prs: Communication ≠ Engagement. Social media and web technologies have made broadcast communication in the 21st century easier then ever, but communication does not equal engagement! This paper demonstrates the importance of senior stakeholder engagement for project success and then suggest practical options to achieve this.
Blg: What is your personal brand? If you want a stakeholder to ‘buy into’ your ideas, believe your communication or take action on your recommendations they need to recognize you as a credible messenger, how they perceive you is framed by your 'personal brand'.
Blg: Integrity is the key to delivering bad news successfully. Integrity is the result of a combination of virtues. You have to earn a reputation for integrity based on what you are, and more importantly what you are known for by the people you have to deliver the bad news to.
WP: Active Listening and Effective Questions. Listening is a conscious activity which requires attention. The right types of question support effective listening and can influence conversations and decisions. These two skills in combination are very powerful.
Art: Ask for information you can use. If you are not careful, the easy to measure drives out the harder to quantify, even when the latter is more important.
WP: Effective Explanations. Explanation is a key communication skill for making ideas, products, and services easier to understand.
WP: Writing Documentation. Effective writing is a key communication medium for all aspects of project management. This paper outlines several universal rules for effective business writing.
WP: Page Layout & Design. The concept of layout design is separate from content design. Good document design will not overcome badly written content; but a poorly designed document will significantly reduce your reader’s comprehension of the message you are trying to convey.
WP: Presentation Skills. Public speaking is one of the hardest things to master. This paper covers the preparation and presentation of information in a public forum including creating and using effective PowerPoint slides.
Blg: The role of Oration in Communication – a lost art? You need to apply a completely different set of skills and re-structure the information in a well written document if you want to communicate the same message verbally, this is the art of ‘oration’.
Art: Rhetoric can backfire. The art of effective persuasion and explanation is to enliven a well constructed argument by the appropriate use of rhetoric to engage with your audience and help them understand and agree with the position you are putting. However, if you base your whole position on the clever use of rhetorical constructs expect the backfire as soon as someone finds the weak point in your position and ‘pulls the pin’.
Art: What’s the message?? How data is presented can change the message. The way schedule reports are designed will change the understanding of key stakeholders.
Blg: Mind your language. A picture may tell a 1000 words, but it needs to be a well designed picture if the message is to be meaningful.
Art: Is what you heard what I meant? Effective communication between project stakeholders is always difficult and misunderstanding and confusion are easily created if information is not structured sensibly.
Art: Communicating in Conflict. One of the realities of life is every once in a while, you are going to become embroiled in a dispute or argument that is emotional and personal. This article maps out a set of strategies that can help you stay focused on using communication to achieve a pragmatic outcome you can 'live with'.
Art: New Ideas hidden in the Fog of Change. Or 'Stop the world, I want to get off'. Complex language may impress some but it prevents effective communication with most stakeholders. Based on an original article from 1981 (read the original article).
Art: Influence without authority. How to build credibility and acquire the ‘currency’ you need to trade for the support and help you require.
WP: Managing Meetings. To make meetings effective, careful thought has to be given to the choice agenda, attendees and the specific purpose of each meeting. Meetings are an important communication forum- see more on meetings in our team management topic.
Art: How to influence others. Ways to use the meeting environment, questions and body language to positively influence others.
Art: Stakeholders and Complexity. Project ‘control systems’ don’t control anything and to a large extent, neither can project managers.In the complex world of the 21st century, communicating to influence outcomes is the key to success.
Negotiation is a special form of communication - this is covered in our procurement page (but applies widely)
There is no
point in communicating if you don't want an outcome!
DP: PMI The High Cost of Low Performance - The Essential Role of Communication. (PMI Pulse of the Profession Publication) The essential role of communications in creating project success.
Art: Communicating for Effect. There is absolutely no point in communicating with someone if you do not want an effect! But you need to be clear on the effect you wish to achieve.
Art:
The three types of stakeholder communication.
There are three general classes of communication that are
needed in an effective stakeholder management:
- Traditional reporting
- Project relations (PR - marketing), and
- Directed communication focused on achieving an effect.
This paper explains how they work together for effective
stakeholder communication.
Art: Communicating with Purpose. There is absolutely no point in communicating with someone if you do not want an effect! The effect you are seeking can vary dramatically, but you need to know what it is! For maximum effect, you also have to select between 'push' and 'pull' communication and the type of communication used.
Art: Targeted communication - The key to effective stakeholder engagement. Designing a 'directed communication' strategy for your project.
PP: Achieving a Successful Engagement. (managing key stakeholder's expectations) Projects will only be considered successful when their key stakeholders acknowledge they are a success. This requires the project team to effectively engage with each of its key stakeholders to understand and manage their expectations and then deliver to project to meet or exceed the ‘managed expectations’.
PP: Advising upwards: managing the perceptions and expectations of senior management stakeholders. The experiences of the authors, in large organizations, in managing the expectations and the support of key senior stakeholders provides a foundation for exploration of the tasks needed to turn a Commander into a Sponsor, how to use the resources available in the form of influence networks, targeted communication and plain persistence. Results are not miraculous, small improvements must be celebrated, the possibility of failure contemplated.
PP: Getting the 'soft stuff' right - Effective communication is the key to successful project outcomes! Effective communication with senior management is an on-going collegiate effort by all project practitioners within the organization; designed to inform, educate and influence senior managers so that ‘sensible’ project decisions become the norm.
Blg: Advising Upwards for Effect. The project team need to be able to effectively ‘advise upwards’ so their executive managers understand the potential value that can be generated from the project and work to ensure the organization makes effective use of the project’s deliverables.
Art: Communicating Upwards for Effect. The key to effective communication is clarity created through simplicity. But frequently people use the same words in similar context but apply completely different meanings. We say something; they attribute their different meaning and know they have understood exactly what we’ve said – but their understanding is not what we meant!
Advising
Upwards: A Framework for Understanding and
Engaging Senior Management Stakeholders. Dr.
Lynda Bourne: Building, and managing, relationships
with senior (upwards) stakeholders is essential for
success. This requires the activity manager to be skillful
at building and maintaining robust relationships, focused
on engaging the support of senior executives,
understanding their expectations and managing them through
targeted communication. See
more.
Prs: Communication in organizations: making the schedule effective. The schedule is a communication medium that can have a powerful influence on the successful delivery of a project, provided the information it contains is understood and used. With effective communication, the schedule can encourage the engagement of stakeholders, assist in minimizing risks and highlight issues.
Art: NEWSPEAK - is not all that new! A 'left field' look at communication and the use of language to influence thinking based on George Orwell's novel 1984.
Mosaic's Director
of Professional Services, Dr.
Lynda Bourne in an internationally recognized
authority on stakeholder management and communication. Our
communication workshops are:
