Project Communications

More projects go wrong because of poor communications and misunderstandings than any other single factor. In the early days of a project it is wise for the project manager and the team to formulate a Communications and Marketing Strategy.

This is done usually after Project Scoping. In fact, a good Project Scoping Report lays most of the groundwork for a Communications Strategy through the stakeholder analysis, the terms of reference, and the project planning.

A Project Communications Strategy should aim to:

keep all involved in the project clear about the progress, the issues and what is expected of them
keep all stakeholders informed about the project and the progress, and ensure that it is kept on their own agenda so that they can adjust their own work and projects to suit.
keep the project on the organisational agenda.

In formulating such a strategy, the project manager and team need to take account of the following basic issues and principles

Key Issues and Principles in Project Communications

1. Information Overload

In almost all organisations, people now face an information overload. As a result, they can often only take notice of a communication and invest time in it if it is clearly relevant to them and concise. Simply copying e-mails and reports to others is not sufficient.

2. Stakeholders' Needs

Different stakeholders have different needs and these need to be addressed differently.

3. Project Stages

In most projects, the communications needs of different stages vary. Different stakeholders may be involved, different information needs to be communicated, different media need to be used. In large projects, each stage may need its own communications strategy.

4. Two-Way Communications

Particularly in organisational change projects, communication needs to be two-way. The Project team needs to ensure that there are channels available, not just for the project team to communicate to staff, but also for the staff to communicate to the team.

5. Choose the media to suit the message

Different information/content needs different media. For some information e-mail can be used but for other information face-to-face is needed. When planning a communication, try to think about the goals you want to achieve at that time and how the various media can contribute to those goals:

The following are five common goals, each requiring different approaches:

Announcing
Gaining interest - Motivating
Educating
Informing
Supporting others decision making