arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
I would like to get your thoughts on your Portfolio, Program, and Project Management Communication experiences:
1. What are the most effective communication tools and channels that you have recently used in communicating with your sponsors and internal and external stakeholders?
2. Why did you choose these specific communication tools and channels?
3. How did you measure the effectiveness of the communication tools and channels that you used?
4. What trending/new communication tools and channels that you would like to try in the near future? Why? Saving Changes...
It all depends on the circumstance. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Arlene, there are plenty, I intend to explore new tools everytime
Still the best tool in my experience is:
1. having dinner (or lunch) with sponsor and other key stakeholders
2. food can increase dopamine levels, sitting at a table helps create rapport and trust. Good eating manners and hosting behaviors are required though.
3. if people recall the joint dinner the next time you meet them and they smile, if business topics discussed are followed up
4. introducing AI / automation in communications will help us better understand our counterparts and remember what has been said, especially in digitally supported meetings
Examples: sembly.ai or perflo.co Saving Changes...
*Google Meet is a good remote communication platform, for organizing work meetings; it has the facility of including subtitles, changing screen background, moderating stakeholders participation enabling/disabling their audio or video. Other most used platform is Zoom, which facilitates you organizing virtual meetings. You can, as Thomas said, include AI automation, with sembly. ai or other.
*For non-formal written communication, you can use platforms like Whatsapp, Google Hangouts or Skype.
*And if you are co-located in the same place, the option mentioned by Thomas, of organizing presential meetings (having meals or sharing some food) is an ideal manner of increasing communication between your stakeholders. Saving Changes...
Jessica ReidConfiguration Management Specialist| Thales Canada Defense and SecurityDartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Face to face meetings, if possible, or even a hybrid meeting of some face to face with Skype/Teams for those who are unable to attend.
I personally find sitting down and having friendly debate and discussion in person allows you to form more of a connection with people, as you are able to better decipher what a person is saying/thinking via body language. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
I have successfully used 'partnering sessions' where you get all (most) stakeholders in a room for a few hours to explore the upcoming project. However you need some structure to these sessions to achieve anything meaningful mixing formality with open discussion. The objective is for a mutual recognition of stakeholder expectations and obligations with commitment to deliver. Depending on the complexity, challenges and length of a project you can have follow up sessions to review success, fine tune, re-commit etc., but don't make it too complicated or onerous.
There are format suggestions out there in the internet world which may help but the heavy lifting is on the project manager/team.
Note: 'partnering' is the not the same as a 'partnership'. Partnership is a legal agreement between parties to achieve an objective whereas partnering is an understanding of the mutual benefits of achieving an objective by working together. Saving Changes...
Latha Thamma reddiSr Product and Portfolio Management (Automation Innovation)| DXC TechnologyMckinney, Tx, United States
Everything is depending on the time and situation. Saving Changes...
Vijay SuryavanshiProject Manager - Engineering| RECARO Aircraft SeatingPlantation, Fl, United States
Hi Arlene,
Your sponsors are worried about how the program is going on(health of the program and status) what is going on with team.
For the sponsors effective communication would be giving a weekly update of programs, status meeting, action items that is visible to the sponsors/management and effective project planning.(Documents from project plan to close must go through the steering committee in different phases.)
For the internal stakeholders, conducting meetings with a MOM sent with action items is effective. Idea is to bring everyone on the same page and work on business problems (connect dots) where there are gaps in communication. Sometimes, things can be fuzzy and don't expect a problem to be solved in a day. Follow up meeting is effective as you get more information. With better information better decisions can be made.(reduces risk as well)
External stake holders are usually customers and vendors. There might be others too like a regulatory agency etc. Interfacing with customer in a pleasing manner and keeping them updated always is important. Deliverables of customer take top priority. as far as vendors, it is important to develop relationships and this can be done through your supply chain or purchasing team.
Also, there are two types of communication push and pull. Which can be used in general.
Push communication includes memos, letters, emails, reports, faxes, etc. It is not face-to-face but is instead typically done through some written medium. The one disadvantage of this type of communication is that the sender can only identify that the message has been successfully sent.
Pull communication doesn't involve pulling in a reader to read your message. Instead, pull communication is all about providing group access to common information. The receiver, however, must recover this information. This method is used for a large audience who require access to information for their use.
Always remember the channels for communication increases or becomes more complex as team member increases and is given by formula n(n-1)/2. This is within a team.
Effectiveness of communication can be measured by outcomes or results. And feedback from customer focusing on deliverables or what is important to them. Giving the customer what they want, when they want and how they want.
Some other channels of communication that are trending are using intranet within the company, social media, dashboards like Kanban Gembha walk in manufacturing area etc.
I would suggest to read a communication portion of project management very well to know this.
Regards
Vijay Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The key is to understand what communication is mainly the difference between data and information. To do that my recommendation is reading and understanding Claudde Shanon "Theory of Information" paper. After that, my recommendation is to understand which is the favorite channel for your stakeholders and go for it. Saving Changes...
Vijay SuryavanshiProject Manager - Engineering| RECARO Aircraft SeatingPlantation, Fl, United States
Don't disagree with Sergio at all. The data is raw and just facts. It is the job of the project manager to collect those data, connect dots and put them in a way everyone(stakeholders) understand which becomes information. Again like what Sergio, says what channel you choose and how you communicate to different stakeholders matters and choose ways that are both effective and get the desired outcomes. Saving Changes...
