Open For Debate

Janis is an award-winning journalist and editor who has covered many industries beyond project management, including health care, financial services, higher education and retail sales.

  ProjectsAtWork  

To get open, honest information from team members you have to give it.

Wearing a glum face, a team member enters your office. "I'm swamped," he says. "I don't think I can stick to the schedule." As project manager, it's not what you want to hear, but the bad news is a complement of sorts. It's a sign you've developed an open communication environment where giving and receiving feedback is prized.

A healthy exchange of information is critical in keeping your project humming and your team members happy. Here's how to foster open communication and offer feedback on performance.

1. Be open yourself

Ed Barnicott, president of e3 Project Management in  Louisville, Ky., recommends you assess your communication style to reduce gatekeeping and sandbagging. Choking off or manipulating information only frustrates the team, while being open im-proves efficiency, he says. If team members know where they stand, they won't waste time creating wild scenarios. "When people are in the dark, they are left to whatever their imagination wants to tell them, and most of the time it will be negative," Barnicott says.

2. Be honest

Honestly, who wouldn't want to be honest? But honesty requires vigilance, says David Kester, a project manager at Avocent Corp. in  Redmond, Wash. Continually check what you say against the rigors of the …

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