IF YOU WERE interviewing an applicant for a job as a project manager, what would be the most critical competency that you would be looking for? Would it be the world's best Gantt chart maker? I doubt it. Would it be an effective influencer? Getting close; but is that the core competency? The core competency would probably be a capable communicator. The ability to share information, both written and verbal, would stand out as the overall top skill required by a project manager.
Communication is paramount because the success or failure of a project often rests with the success or failure of the communications among all the project players. And it is the job of the project manager to ensure, to the best of his or her ability, that communication is facilitated, orchestrated, and managed.
However, even if your applicant for the job of project manager possesses excellent communication skills and accepts the job, he or she cannot be successful unless we, as managers, provide him or her with a well-orchestrated communication infrastructure.
This article discusses why we should have a communication infrastructure; channels of communication; barriers to communication; and what the communication infrastructure should contain. Part 2, in the December PM Network, will provide the methods and modes of communication and helpful hints to better communication.
Why Have a Communication Infrastructure? To ensure successful communication, an infrastructure should be created to provide a common platform and a consistent process. This communication infrastructure helps project players stay on track by adhering to all the project plans that are in place. It positions the common goal or vision in the form of a project charter or project definition.
It broadcasts the standard approaches and methods not only to conducting the project but also to producing the project's end product or deliverable. It facilitates change management by informing all impacted parties of requested changes so that they can respond with the work effort involved to accommodate the change. It offers a central repository of information concerning all the tasks that need to be performed and all the deliverables that are to be created out of those tasks.
Joan Knutson is founder and president of Project Mentors, a San Francisco-based project management training and consulting firm. She can be reached at 415-955-5777. Send comments on this column to [email protected].
It clearly articulates all the stakeholders that need to be involved in the project management process so that all the project players know where to get information and whom to ask for information. A communication infrastructure helps manage the perception of the sponsors and the key managers who, if lacking information, may conjure up negative impressions of the project's progress as well as of the performance of the project team.
Channels of Communication. Picture the project manager as the hub of a wheel. Around the hub are spokes representing the various communication linkages that must be established between the project manager and the project sponsor and/or client, between the project manager and the project team, and between the project manager and the other stakeholders in the project, including vendors and third-party suppliers.
These channels of communications are two-way. The project manager must remember that sending information “out” in the form of status reports or memos is only part of his or her job. The really important part of the communication process is receiving information “in” from all the project players. This inbound communication can be in the form of filled-out forms or updated automated scheduled programs. Yet real communication is one-on-one and often unstructured, and can be accomplished by dropping by someone's cubicle, making a phone call, or going out to lunch. If a project player is located at a remote site, the project manager must work doubly hard at establishing and maintaining the communication link .
Barriers to Communication. To build a strong communication infrastructure, you need to be aware of communication barriers and devise ways to overcome them. Here are some to watch for:
With today's technology … there can be information overload—too much, too many, too urgent. There isn't time enough to read it all and respond appropriately.
Information can either be too detailed or too general for the reader to understand or to be able to respond.
The purpose of the message may be unclear; more importantly, the action required of the receiver of the message may also be unclear.
Because much of our communication is one-way—from the sender to the receiver via e-mail, voice mail, or memo—we rely on the receiver's individual interpretation, which may not be what the writer meant.
Each discipline has its own lexicon of terms and acronyms. These words and phrases appear in our written communication, often without definition. This can lead to unclear messages.
People use different styles to communicate. Some people use a very homey style, employing “us” and “we”; other people use a more arms-length style, using “they” or “one.” The message of a sender attempting to be more professional may appear officious to the reader. The message of a writer attempting to be friendly may be interpreted as flip or disrespectful. As much as the sender attempts to make the message objective, his or her mood and what has gone well or not well during the day can creep into the writing style.
Because of the volume of messages, the receiver may not be able to read or listen to all the messages and respond to a message in a timely manner. When the sender does not receive a timely response, he or she feels insulted or at the least “put off.”
Time-constrained and in a hurry, especially when using e-mail, the writer may use incomplete sentences, which the receiver of the message may misinterpret. In addition, the hurried writer may misspell words, which may be distracting to the reader.
The last barrier is the highest hurdle of all: ASSUMPTIONS. Every sender of a message has made certain assumptions about what the receiver already knows or what the receiver feels or thinks about the subject. The receiver also makes the same kinds of assumptions about what the sender knows, feels, or thinks. These assumptions may often be incorrect and cause serious communication problems.
What the Communication Infrastructure Should Contain. A communication infrastructure consists of documented procedures defining who is to communicate with whom in what time frame by what medium or mode. These procedures start out by isolating who are the stakeholders in that part of the project; in other words, the channels of communication discussed above. There will be communication procedures for every phase within the project management life cycle—in initiation and definition; planning; execution and control; as well as in closeout. Each procedure requires a communication plan.
The communication plan includes the purpose of the communication, those people who need to communicate with each other, templates of forms that need to be filled out, or common elements of information that need to be communicated. If there is a delegation of authority or a level of accountability, it must be articulated clearly.
Let's take, as an example, the communication initiated by a request for a change in the scope of a deliverable. Hypothetically, the deliverable out of the project was to be of a blue color but now the project client wants it brown. The purpose of the communication is to request and receive in return an evaluation of the additional effort; duration and cost are needed to accommodate this change. The people who need to communicate with one another are the person requesting the change and the people on the project team who will be asked to determine the impact to the current project plan. There is a template in place, which asks for specifics about the change and what criteria will be needed in order to approve the work necessary to accomplish the change. The procedure also indicates that once the project team members have evaluated the impact, it will be the project client who must approve the additional time and cost to make the change.
Another part of the procedure must deal with how to resolve miscommunication. This includes a feedback loop that confirms that the message has been received and understood, and also includes an escalation process when disagreements occur. In our scope change example, what if the requestor of the change does not believe that changing the color from blue to brown will take three months and cost $100,000, as the project team has estimated? Who does the project client ask to arbitrate or mediate this difference of opinion? Designating a court of appeals process then becomes necessary with many types of communications.
The communication infrastructure requires a continuous review. To keep the communication plan effective, several questions need to be addressed: Are all the types of communications necessary? If not, cancel the communications that are unnecessary. Are the communications channels and the timetables being adhered to? If not, add or delete people from the distribution list and/or change the frequency of the distribution of the communication. For example, if a weekly status phone conference is too frequent, then change it to biweekly. Does the template require more information than is necessary for all the situations? If yes, designate some portions of the template as mandatory; in other words, that section must be filled out, but completing other sections is optional.
WE NOW PAUSE until December, when we will pick up Part 2 of this article in the next Executive's Notebook.