The Benefits of Visual Communication

Paul has run a plethora of projects in multiple industries throughout his 20-year career, ranging from process improvement to agile to most recently cyber-security. Paul is also a reputable speaker, drawing practical and humorous conclusions from the "trenches" of his employers. Paul's dedication as a PM practitioner started decades ago, when he became one of the first 10,000 people to earn the PMP.

  Communications Management   Stakeholder Management  

We as project managers are well-versed in visual communication by virtue of our ability to present our typical project management artifacts. We can produce colored Gantt charts at all levels of granularity. Our S-curve showing project spend makes it clear if we are on budget or not. We can even go so far as to produce histograms of hours consumed versus hours remaining.

With these visual communication skills, there is a larger opportunity to apply them to other facets of our projects. Through our ability to conceptualize and articulate, we can assist with the capture and creation of domain artifacts as well as decision-making aids. This demonstrates an added value that transcends routine project management, for which we will be appreciated.

Let me start off by recounting a real example. We had a major IT initiative underway in the hospital and health network where I work. This was a large, long-term project to ensure the availability of our infrastructure, which is vital to a healthcare setting in which IT systems contribute to keeping people alive.

Long-term projects require extensive long-range planning, with clear milestones to demonstrate progress and to maintain steady momentum over the long duration. The project manager was diligent in laying out what need to be accomplished and when. He reported, with great enthusiasm, that his project was “on track”…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.