Communicating Effectively

Formal and informal communication.  The way you deliver a message is key to how the message is received.  As a project manager a lot of your time is to make sure everyone is on the same page and happy.  They also focus on timeframes and making sure all the pieces fit from start to finish.  90% of the communication is not in your words, for example the timeframe you submit information, how focused you are on detail.  You must be really clear in your communication to everyone including the stakeholders.  Emails and public meetings is a good way to keep everyone updated.  Communication strategies vary and never remains the same for everyone.  Someone mentions they were uncomfortable with a formal style of operating projects.  Sensing the style of the organization is very important because it may be different than what you are accustomed to and may take some time to evaluate.  Addressing communication should allow you to ask for advice in the organization, getting the key players together to discuss the communication strategies are also a good idea so that you are on the same page, probe your group for traps you could encounter, document and refine the information you gathered and present to the organization to ensure everyone agrees with your communication strategy.  Three forms of communication are email, voicemail, and face-to-face.  The messages were pretty much the same to me but for some can be misinterpreted.  The email message can be misread because we are reading from a paper document and there is not expression involved, the person reading the message can interpret the message in a good or bad way.  Voicemail went well because you can hear the tone in her voice when she is relaying the message, and the face-to face is also great because you not only get the tone of voice but you can also see their facial expressions and can completely interpret the message as a whole.  Depending on the personality type people may interpret the massage in many ways.  Therefore if it is an extremely important message it should be displayed face-to face.

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.