Quality of Project Communication

One of the most important traits that a project manager need is effective communication skills. Project managers do a lot of communication with the stakeholders, end users, project team members, senior management, peers, HR people and quality personnel. Sometimes, projects that overcome most of the other technical and engineering challenges run into trouble just because of ineffective communication either with team or with the stakeholders. Good communication acts as a lubricant to smoothen the processes and sometimes as catalyst that just facilitates project activities.

Effective Project Communication should :

– be transparent and accurate
– be complete (covers all information to avoid surprises later)
– be bi-directional (a lot of PM's do a unidirectional communication)
– manage expectations (of client and from team on deliveries, timelines, costs etc.)
– be simple and formal
– be focused
– be specific, linear and logical (to ensure easy understanding and common perception of what is written/said)
– proactively manage risks (things that will impact project)
– share insights and experiences
– be receptive to ideas
– build trust through positivity
– pay attention to people issues
– focus on solutions
– provide accurate status of project from time to time

Technical projects will have issues and poor project communication creates more of them. Proactive communication helps project managers to execute smoothly, manage expectations and hence deliver on time, as agreed, with less uncertainty and without any surprises.

As a project manager, how much attention do you pay to the "quality" of project communication?