Communication skills are a combination of the hard skills of verbal or written communication combined with the soft skills of judgment and knowing how/what/when to communicate.
The former can be judged using assessments such as those used by many recruiting agencies but the latter is much more difficult to assess and might only be gauged by looking at the issue logs from past project the individual has managed to understand what percentage of issues related to poor communications on the PMs part.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Anish AbrahamPrivacy Program Manager| University of WashingtonAuburn, Wa, United States
I concur with Kiron.
I also think that you can evaluate someone's communication skills by looking at their ability to take the lead and facilitate discussion about how to resolve issues and problems. Saving Changes...
Alyne Padilla LynchSr Business Process Analyst| Communications and Finance IndustrySacramento, Ca, United States
Good talking point! Agree with Kiron. I'd add that there are personality/strengths based tests that help to identify character traits. Communication is often found on these tests. Saving Changes...
Mazen AlRefaaiSr Engineer| Saudi Bin Ladin GroupMecca, Saudi Arabia
Dear Kiron
I agree with you that going throw the past projects issue logs will give useful indication.
Thanks Saving Changes...
Aurora Martina GranataProject Manager - International Marketing| GartnerBarcelona, Ct, Spain
This is a very interesting conversation.. is there any way to keep track of how your communication skills as a PM helped in a project or the company as a whole? Are there frameworks out there that can help to do that?
I know it might sounds like a silly question, but sometimes it is difficult to make people understand that communicating is literally one of the core areas of a PM, and even if it seems we are not producing any deliverable, with our ability to communicate and pass information we are bringing value to the company and the team.
Sometimes it is just hard to "prove" it... Saving Changes...
