Best practices used by effective project communicators

In this post we’ll look at general communications management, status reports, conducting meetings, interpersonal skills, and the best use for the common communication media.

General Communications Management - the best practices of general project communications management are:

• Assign a point man - To ensure quality and consistency in project communications, make sure to assign specific project team members accountable for official project communications. On most projects, you (the project manager) will serve as the communications point. However, on larger  projects, you might need to delegate responsibility for certain communication items or for communication to targeted stakeholders. This might include working closely with the company’s human resources, marketing, or corporate communications departments.
• Leverage natural strengths - Although you will always need to leverage many communication forms and media, take advantage of any natural communications strength you might possess and use the other methods to support those strengths.
• Perform stakeholder analysis - As part of your communications planning, perform a stakeholder analysis. This analysis should provide insights into the needs and motivations of each stakeholder. In addition, use this assessment to validate what type of project communications are needed to properly support each stakeholder audience and manage their expectations.
• Use push and pull - Effective project communicators use both push (send it to them) and pull (make it available to them) communication methods. With the advent of central project repositories, the pull method has experienced growing popularity. Although the use of this method is excellent for anytime, on-demand information needs by stakeholders, do not rely on it for important or urgent project communications. Make sure to send (push) any important, urgent project communications directly to the targeted stakeholders. In addition, if you are using team collaboration technologies (such as SharePoint), you can leverage both push and pull methods simultaneously by having stakeholders subscribe for alerts that notify them automatically (push) if there is an update to a given artifact. The alert contains a link that the stakeholder can use to access the targeted artifact (pull).
• Make it easy - If you want to score big points with your stakeholders, make it easy on them to understand what you are sending them (provide summaries) or asking them to do (provide context and purpose). Don’t make them search for things (include referenced items with your
  communication). Your stakeholders are busy with many tasks and priorities, and they don’t enjoy feeling confused and unsure. Any efforts you make that enable them to quickly understand what you’re delivering or what you’re asking them to do will always be appreciated, and these efforts will increase your value to the overall project.
• Keep the information flowing - A simple but powerful service provided by many effective project communicators is to make sure the right people have the right information to perform their roles. In many organizations, information tends to not flow easily from one group to another. An effective project manager looks for these bottleneck points and simply acts as a conduit for better information flow.
• Take communication decisions seriously - Consider your relationship, the message content, and available media options when making any communication decision. In general, certain communication options are better for different types of situations, and effective communicators choose wisely.
• Confirm technology and user training - Always ensure that the technologies to be used for your particular communication are working properly and that the affected stakeholders understand how to leverage them correctly.

Communication methods

Given the organisational and geographical diversity of project teams – it is important to consider all methods of communication. Today’s enhanced technology allows us to communicate easily where ever the team members may be. A communication strategy should be conceived at the project planning stages, so key is its influence on the success of the project. Communication methods can either be active or passive.

ACTIVE communication methods being those used to communicate in the here and now, for example the use of:

• Face to Face meetings 
• Video conference, meeting – one on one, or group
• Telephone conference, or voice only web conference
• Webinars, becoming increasingly popular for the delivery of presentation based activities
• Telephone – good old fashioned call
• Stand up presentations in person

PASSIVE communication methods would be those which recipients can adopt in their own time, for example:

• Pod cast
• Web cast
• Email 
• Intranet bulletin boards
• Blogs
• Website
• Project newsletter – paper based
• Table top presentation

Always ensure that a mix of active and passive methods of communication are used to compliment each other. This should be considered as part of the overall project management communication strategy. To best manage project communications, you need to understand the strengths and limits of each option, so that you use the medium that is most appropriate for the type of relationship you have with the targeted audience and for the content of the message. The right choices can improve project
productivity, facilitate open communications, and build stronger stakeholder relationships. The wrong choices create misperceptions, confusion, and weaker stakeholder relationships.

Status Reporting

The best status reporting practices of effective project communicators include:

• Be consistent - Provide progress status reports on a consistent, regular basis as defined in the project communications plan.
• Target reports - Provide the appropriate level of detail for the targeted audience.
• Use bullets and numbered lists - Use bullet points and numbered lists to summarize key facts; keep it short; enable the reader to quickly gauge the state of the project.
• Employ visuals -Because most people are visual learners and most senior management types need to get a thorough understanding of project status and/or the project issue quickly, look for opportunities to provide information in a visual format.
• Use color-coding - If not defined for the organization, establish three general threshold levels for key project metrics and critical success factors. For each level, associate the appropriate stoplight color: green, yellow, or red. Then use these colors to communicate the health of each key project metric on the status report. This enables senior management to get a quick reading on the project’s health.
• Leverage exception-based approach - Use the main (first part) of the status report to highlight any exceptions or variances to the project plan. Then provide details in the appendix section. This format should enable you to provide one status report that meets the needs of most, if not all, of your key stakeholders.

Meetings

The best meeting practices of effective project communicators include the following:

• Know your game plan - Determine the overall goal and objectives for the meeting; invite the right people; structure the meeting appropriately; determine what preparation is needed by the meeting participants to make the meeting useful.
• Post an agenda - Whenever possible, post an agenda in advance of the meeting. In either case, make sure to review the agenda at the start of the meeting and check whether any modifications are needed.
• Facilitate - Be the meeting director. Review and set meeting context; review meeting ground rules upfront; keep everyone engaged; keep the meeting flowing; solicit feedback; summarize key points; seek consensus.
• Stay on track - Keep the meeting on topic; set time limits (timebox) for agenda items; watch out for trying to solve problems in meetings, schedule follow-up meeting instead.
• Leverage conferencing tools - When some people are participating virtually, leverage combinations of audio, video, and web conferencing tools to improve meeting quality
• Take notes - Delegate someone to take notes of meeting decisions and action items.
• Attain closure - Before adjourning the meeting, review all actions items (including responsible owners and targeted completion times), summarize meeting results, schedule any necessary follow-up meetings, and thank attendees for their active participation and time.
• Post minutes - Distribute (post) meeting minutes to meeting participants and affected parties within 24 hours of the meeting whenever possible. If action is required from non-attendees, seek their commitment before distributing minutes, or note items on which they have not been consulted.

Interpersonal Skills

The next set of best practices are likely the most important because they impact the quality of all your project communications—the formal and the more frequent day-to-day interpersonal communications that occur between the project team and the project stakeholders. The following list notes the key
interpersonal skills demonstrated by effective communicators:

• Listen with a purpose.
• Be humble.
• Think before responding.
• Take their perspective.
• Don’t be judgmental.
• Be interested in others.
• Seek to understand what they do, why they do it, and what pains they are experiencing.
• Validate perceptions before responding.
• Show appreciation for their time and contributions.
• Ask questions to confirm and improve your understanding.
• Summarize what the speaker said.
• Make people feel heard.
• Focus on building relationships.
• Stay in control of your emotions.
• Don’t assume that a negative response by others is personal—most of the time it’s not.
• Avoid interrupting, if at all possible.
• Validate that you are being understood.
• Avoid terms and tones that imply judgment, guilt, or wrong doing on other parties.