Communication is an essential component at Project Management. It seems obvious to say that, as Communications is a key element of our life from the origin, it is involved in everything we do. But some things seem so obvious so we take it for granted. And the fact that is we don’t communicate correctly for all. It is actually very usual when something fails, doesn’t work or don’t meet expectations. Then, we use to say it is a communications failure. And very often this is not the real reason. However, is a true that many projects fail by unsatisfactory communication.
What we bring today is this article (in Spanish) by Carlos Gonzalez Jardón, expert and advisor at Tecnocom. It’s about the importance of Communication in Project Management. It starts asserting “from a project responsible point of view, communication is one of the key skills to take care and promote”. But sometimes fails or get out from our control. These are some of the reasons:
– Wrong, incomplete, over top or slanted information.
– Non valid interlocutor.
– Inappropriate time management.
– Inappropriate means of transmission.
– Lack of clarity
– Etc.
What the author propose is, basically, spending time and attention for this subject. He remarks several guidelines to take in account in order to communicate more efficiently. Knowing the dimensions where communication is moving into:
– Internal and external.
– Formal vs informal.
– Vertical and horizontal.
– Official and unofficial.
– Written vs oral.
– Verbal vs non verbal.
As of these scenarios, Carlos offers a set of recommendations to improve communication. As many experts affirm, “it’s among key steps to improve project execution”. These are the following:
– To plan and prepare, avoid improvisation.
– Using a simple language to be understood.
– Obtaining feedback.
– Displaying multiple communication channels.
– To determine recipient sensibility.
– In face-to-face communication, pay attention to recipient corporal language.
– To communicate on the right time, in accurate format and by appropriate means.
– Reinforcing words with action.
– Active listening, understanding the recipient point of view.
The author concludes with a definition we like particularly: “Effective Project Management Communication ensures that the right person has the required information at appropriate time, using accurate means and formats”.
Not much to add by our side. Simply reminding, further to adopt a right attitude about Communication, it’s a good help counting with tools such as MySaaSPlace in order to ensure streaming and effective information flow, ensuring that data and elements to communicate are always visible and accessible. The rest depends on us.
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