What Makes Quality Communication?
From the Communication Excellence in Project Management Blog
by Bill Brantley
Although Project Managers spend 90% of their time communicating, communication in project management is the most underdeveloped skill for project managers. This blog will help Project Managers become better communicators and thus, better Project Managers.
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Part of my engagement research involves the relationship between the quality of the workplace communication environment and employee engagement. There are several definitions of communication quality but they tend to include the elements of trust, comprehensibility, and an action-orientation.
For example, Eriksson (2000) lists five criteria for communication quality:
C1 - Communication with a relevant and comprehensible information content
C2 - Communication with a relevant and understandable action aspect
C3 - Comprehensible communication
C4 - Trustworthy communication
C5 - Communication that can be criticized, controlled, and defended
Notice how comprehensible is part of the first three criteria with trust being the fourth criteria. What interests me is the fifth criterion which Eriksson relates to the sincerity of the communication. What aspects of project communication have the necessity for being criticized and defended? The initial project plan? The work breakdown structure? The communications with the stakeholders?
Eriksson refers to his model as the "generic communication quality criteria." I believe these criteria relate to project management communications but I also want to add two other criteria.
C6 - Communication that supports the project planning process and project control process
C7 - Communication that contains risk detection and mitigation information content
What do you think? How would you measure the quality of the project management communication environment?
Reference:
Eriksson, O. (2000). Communication quality: Towards an intersubjective understanding of quality. Reports on Business and Informatics.
Posted on: September 07, 2015 03:39 PM |
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Comments (3)
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These are excellent points and I particularly like your addition of C7 (risk detection and mitigation). As for C6, I think it might fall under the scope of C1 to an extent.
While this is not exactly related to communication quality, I would emphasize how important it is to ensure that the communication is received and processed. Most employees in the organization receive hundreds of communications per day and it's possible to miss or forget about an email or two. It's important to follow up on an any sent communication to ensure that it was received/understood. Until a response is received, the sender remains responsible for information (to a reasonable extent).
fosco frongia
Senior project manager| ENTE PATRIMONIALE CHIESA GESU' CRISTO SUG
Fino Mornasco, Como, Italy
I fully agree with Anzor. the elements cited in your articles refers to the quality elements needed for "sending" a message, but is as much important to verify as the receiver understand our message. I would add other criteria: communication that contains the needed elements for feedback
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Bill
Interesting this reflection on the theme: "What Makes Quality Communication?"
Thanks for sharing
Important point to remember: The 7 criteria for communication quality in projects
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