Critical Success Factors for Global Project Communications

We all know that communications and communicating are very important. We have all heard that “you can’t over-communicate” in order to keep people informed and that “you need to say everything three times” in order to deliver your message. And of course, we have all been told that “you must know your audience.”

During the past ten years, I have worked with people not only in North America, but also in Europe and Asia, as well as with people from Australia, Japan, and South America. I have encountered puzzled venting such as, “I sent them the specification documents and they didn’t say anything—and now, four weeks later, nothing matches the specs.” I have also heard people say (with looks of great surprise) “Why didn’t you ask me at the last conference call when I told you? I thought you understood: I saw your e-mail reply, and you said there were no problems. But what you’ve done is not what I was expecting.”

In this paper, I want to focus on the global project management context where project stakeholders reside worldwide, and discuss three critical success factors for achieving successful global project communications: frequency, furthering, and format.

Frequency – Frequent communications that are qualified • to minimize confusion, erroneous assumptions…