The value of communication for the project manager goes beyond the communication plan. It is the one key success tool for any PM.
In the communications plan, the PM and sponsor agree on the basics. They identify the frequency and form of the status reporting, and may include informational communication to the stakeholders, clients, end users, media, community, you can probably think of a slew more.
What isn’t in the communications plan, and I’m not sure how you would put it in there, is the informal communications. The elevator conversations, the water cooler sound bytes, the hallway decisions, you know what I mean.
Even if you can’t document how you are going to deal with the informal communications, you need to talk about it.
One topic to discuss with the sponsor and the team is key speaking points. Throughout the project, people will ask you and your team ‘what’s the project about?’ If everyone gives a different answer, it can dilute the message and drop your project down the visibility and priority scale. If everyone says the same thing, in their own words, your project comes across as focused and well thought out.
Another question that is more difficult to ‘script’ is “how is your project going?” The reason this is difficult is that the answer will be different for every person. To use an IT project for simplicity, a business analyst who is struggling to get requirements from a client, may see the project very differently from a developer who isn’t yet engaged in the work. The optimistic sponsor will see things very differently from the QA tester.
I’ve found that the best way to get a clear message out is to communicate perspective to the team. For the sponsor, who sees the big picture, they need to understand it’s normal to have challenges at the detail level and that they don’t need to act if someone hears from QA that there are problems. The end user who might be going through a difficult learning curve, needs to hear the end goals to give them perspective.
There are other communications that need to be considered but it’s important to keep in mind that the communications plan is only the beginning of the project communication. The project manager who doesn’t pay attention to all communication will find themselves surprised by what people think or what they say.
Happy PMing
Perry
Tags: communication, project challenges, solutions