This is the fifth of six articles that discuss key skills for successful project managers. The extract posted here will be published in its final form in a forthcoming book, Delivering Value with Project Management, by Woods & Marshall (2023).

• Skill #1: Leadership, Delegation, and Influence
• Skill #2: Motivation and Teamwork
• Skill #3: Negotiation and Conflict Management
• Skill #4: Emotional Intelligence

Strong interpersonal and technical skills help project managers excel at their work and enable others to see them as effective leaders and managers. In this series of articles, I will share six key interpersonal skills that project managers should focus on developing.

Project Managers are Communicators

Project managers spend the majority of their time communicating. Therefore they must be good communicators, promoting a clear, unambiguous exchange of information. As a project manager, you must keep many people well informed. It is essential that your project staff know what is expected of them: what they have to do when they have to do it and what budget, time constraints, and quality specifications they are working toward. If project staff members do not know their tasks or how to accomplish them, the entire project will grind to a halt. If you do not know what the project staff is doing, you will be unable to monitor the project’s progress. Finally, if you are uncertain of what the customer expects of you, the project will not even get off the ground.

Project communication can be summarized as knowing “who needs what information and when” and ensuring they have it.

One of the most important communication skills of the project manager is the ability to listen actively. Active listening is placing oneself in the speaker’s position as much as possible, understanding the communication from the speaker’s point of view, observing body language and other environmental cues, and striving not just to hear but to understand. Active listening takes focus and practice to become effective. It enables a project manager to go beyond the basic information being shared and develop a complete understanding of the information. Active listening techniques include:

• Listening intently to the words being spoken and discerning the speaker’s body language
• Nodding and expressing interest in the speaker without forming rebuttals
• Providing feedback and asking for clarity while repeating a summary of the information back to the speaker
• Expressing empathy and understanding for the speaker

Good Communication Starts with Good Planning

All projects require sound communication plans, but not all projects will have the same types of communication or the same methods for distributing information. For example, will data be distributed via mail or email, is there a shared website, or are face-to-face meetings required? The communication management plan documents how the project team will meet the stakeholders’ communication needs. This plan also includes the types of data the team will communicate, who will initiate communication, and who will receive it; the methods used to communicate; communication timing and frequency; the method for updating the plan as the project progresses, including the escalation process; and a glossary of standard terms.

Communications management is about keeping everybody informed. Communications planning involves defining the types of information you will deliver, who will receive it, the format for communicating it, and the timing of its release and distribution. Much of a project manager’s time is spent on communication, so it is essential to ensure everybody gets the right message at the right time. This activity may be started when stakeholders are first identified and engaged, and continuously updated as the project progresses.

Step 1. Figure out what information your stakeholders need.

The first step in defining your communication plan is figuring out what information your stakeholders need from the project to make good decisions. Your project will produce much information, and you do not want to overwhelm your stakeholders. Your job is to figure out what they feel is valuable. Communicating valuable information does not mean you always present a positive picture. Communications to stakeholders may consist of either good or bad news. You do not want to bury stakeholders in too much information; instead, you want to give them enough so that they can be informed and make appropriate decisions.

The information you will typically communicate includes project status, scope statements and updates, baseline information, risks, action items, performance measures, project acceptance, and so on. The stakeholders’ information requirements need to be determined early in the planning phase of the project management life cycle so that while you and your team develop planning documents, you already know who should receive copies of them and how they should be delivered.

Finally, consider project duration and environment. Will the technology you choose work throughout the project’s life, or will it be upgraded, updated, or discontinued? And how does the team function? Are they located together or spread out across several campuses or locations? The project team should document the answers to these questions in the communication plan. All projects require a sound communication plan, but not all projects will have the same types of communication or the same methods for distributing the information. The communication plan documents the types of information the stakeholders need to know, when the information should be distributed, and how the information will be delivered.

Step 2. Figure out how to share the information.

Communication media, or the way project information is shared, can take many forms, such as formal reports, conversations, emails, meetings, online dashboards, and collaboration platforms. You should consider timing and technology before choosing the methods you will use to communicate information. The first factor is the timing of information exchanges. Daily communication may be too much; monthly is likely not enough. One update per week is appropriate for most projects. Hold project meetings as required, but don’t let too much time pass between meetings. Be sure to answer stakeholders’ questions and emails promptly. Regular communication is always appreciated – and may even soften the blow when you have bad news to share.

Second, do you need to procure new technology or systems, or are there systems already in place that will work? The available technologies should figure into your plan to notify everyone of project status and issues. Staff experience with technology is another factor. Are the team members and stakeholders experienced in using this technology, or will you need to train them?

Consider how stakeholders wish to obtain information. The PM may consider “push” versus “pull” techniques for information. Some stakeholders prefer the PM to push or send information to them regularly, such as an email with a project status report. Others may prefer to pull the information conveniently by going to an online project dashboard that displays updated progress reports and metrics.

Deeper Dive

Project Dashboards share information visually and in real time. There are many online tools available to develop project dashboards. The article below describes different types of dashboards and shares best practices for creating dashboards that are useful to your team.

Calzon, B. (2021). How To Create a Project Management Dashboard – Examples & Templates. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.datapine.com/blog/project-management-dashboards-examples-and-templates/

Many tools are available to collaborate with your project team. How do you decide which collaboration software to use? Linda Rosencrance has a few ideas that might help you get started.

Rosencrance, Linda. (2022) How to choose the right project collaboration software | Computerworld. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.computerworld.com/article/3647528/how-to-choose-the-right-project-collaboration-software.html

About the UNG Press

The information presented here is an excerpt from a forthcoming book that will be published by the University of North Georgia Press, a scholarly, peer-reviewed press. UNG Press is an extension of their sponsoring university, the University of North Georgia. Their primary function is to promote education and research, with a special emphasis on innovative scholarship and pedagogy.

For media inquiries, please contact the University of North Georgia Press at ungpress@ung.edu or call (706) 864-1556.