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Churchill: The Agile PM (Part 14)
Most people are very familiar with Winston Churchill but may not be familiar with his “agile” approach to project management and his skills as a PM in the summer of 1940. Part 13 looked at how Churchill put a communication plan in place to bolster morale in the government, media and public. This article discusses how Churchill personally communicated using both verbal and non-verbal communication to fight the mood of defeatism, build confidence and get buy-in into his plan.
In today’s world, PMs need to set up effective communication mechanisms, as pointed out in Maintaining Communications...And Project Control by Joe Wynne, where “effective project communications preserves your control in a project.” This requires a monitoring component in the communication plan to provide feedback on the plans effectiveness.
The core to Churchill’s project communications were around radio broadcasts used to speak directly with the public. He was deeply conscious of the need to keep public opinion behind the war effort and home front morale high. He invested inordinate amounts of time to get it right and to gain and sustain public confidence. For every minute of speech he would prepare for one hour, an incredible amount of time. So a typical 40 minute speech would take 40 hours of preparation.
This is unrealistic for today’…
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