Project Communications: Easily Difficult, Difficultly Easy

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  Communications Management   Stakeholder Management  

The title of this article exemplifies how something that is fundamentally quite simple can be very difficult to understand. How can a skill that is the foundation of project management, and in fact all business, easily become so difficult so quickly? Looked at differently, why do we often make it so challenging to do something so easy? Scratching your head? Let me explain…

A simple exercise
I have a favorite group exercise I like to perform during project kickoffs--and in a classroom full of people being introduced to project management. I use the nominal group technique of having individuals consider reasons why projects they have been involved with didn’t go well.

They write a single reason on a sticky note and are encouraged to use as many sticky notes as possible. Everyone then brings their sticky notes to a wall. In very little time, it’s not unusual to gather nearly 100 inputs from a group as small as 10 to 15 people.

We then quickly categorize the sticky notes to determine the most frequent cause of past problems. The results vary, but frequently, “poor communications” is among the top three causes. We then go on to discuss how to learn from history so as not to repeat it. The simple solution: Recognize that building a project communications plan is every bit as important as the …

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