Project Communication from Start to Finish

The Dynamics of Organizational Success

Geraldine E. Hynes

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781949991543
• eBook ISBN: 9781949991550
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

Research shows that 90 percent of a project manager's time is spent communicating with various stakeholders. This book offers strategies that enhance communication throughout the project cycle and describes innovative techniques for bridging cultural gaps, increasing understanding, and ensuring project success.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Project Communication

Chapter Objectives

This chapter provides a rationale for the book and sets the stage for its content. It begins by explaining that communication is a key knowledge area for project managers and presents research findings that show the correlation between communication effectiveness and project success as well as organizational success. Next, the chapter introduces the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), the premier resource for project managers. The chapter highlights sections of the Guide that focus on communication competencies for project managers.

In the third section of this chapter, project life cycles are described, as well as the role of communication at each stage of the life cycle. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the conceptual model at the heart of this book—“The Sequence for Success”—and shows how the model embodies critical ideas about project communication that are found in the PMBOK® Guide.

Communication as a Key Knowledge Area for Project Managers

Communication competence is important for today’s project managers. The importance is increasing, for several reasons. For one thing, organizations are becoming more complex, and managers’ responsibilities are growing. Overall, the role of the project manager has evolved over the past 50 years from being the administrator of a project toward a much more managerial and leadership position, fulfilling an organizational strategic need.

A second influence on the importance of effective communication is the competition inherent in a global environment, with accompanying demands for speed, quality, and service. A third factor is the diversity of the contemporary workplace, which often extends beyond geographical boundaries. Fourth, advances in telecommunications have developed, adding new expectations for managerial communication regarding speed and accuracy. In short, project managers must have the ability to communicate to a diverse group of stakeholders in a rapidly changing global context.

The importance of managerial communication is evolving.

Communication and Project Managers’ Success

The project manager’s role is one of the most challenging jobs in any organization, because it requires a broad understanding of the various areas that must be coordinated and requires strong interpersonal skills. It is widely acknowledged that the final outcome of the project depends mainly on the project manager.

To determine what capabilities and competencies are most important for a project manager’s success, a content analysis was conducted of 762 job advertisements for project managers across a range of industries and countries. The results are shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Recruiters’ top requirements for project managers

Competency	Advertisement (%)
Communication	61.7
Technical skills	43.5
Stakeholder management	41.7
Cost management	37.4
Time management	32.7
Education	28.6
Planning	26.1
Leadership	24.4
Team building and management	22.6
Certification	20.5

As Table 1.1 shows, the top competency that recruiters sought was communication (61.7 percent).1

Martha Buelt and Connie Plowman, prominent coaches and educators in project management, also identify communication as a key strength for project managers. They describe this strength as:

You speak and write clearly. You place high value on human interaction, talking with—not to—people. You tell stories to enliven your ideas, gain commitment, and maintain enthusiasm. You ask good questions, listen well, and help others express their feelings. You “think out loud” and encourage collaboration.2

Drilling down to specific behaviors, Buelt and Plowman define a “strength” as the ability to do something consistently well. Communication is a strength for project managers if they communicate consistently well what stakeholders need to know. Components of project managers’ communication competency are summarized in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 Project managers’ communication strengths

...

Building blocks	Behavior
Skill	Active listening

Table of contents

• cover
• halftitle
• title
• copyright
• Abstrac
• contents
• Ack
• 01_Chapter 1
• 02_Chapter 2
• 03_Chapter 3
• 04_Chapter 4
• 05_Chapter 5
• 06_Notes
• 07_References
• 08_about
• 09_Index