I am studying Master in Business Project Management and preparing my dissertation now. My topic is to find out if social media makes for better communication and project success? I have some ideas in mind but would like to seek more insights and opinions. Are you using social media tools to facilitate your project communication? Are you using only one tool or different tools across different project life cycle? What is your opinion in integrating social media in project communication? You might consider giving an example of the social media tool such as Jira, Trello, Confluence…
Any comments are appreciated. Thank you very much. Saving Changes...
Hi Dora, I am not sure the tools you mention are social media tools, but perhaps so. Linkedin is now becoming a social media tool, so I would include that one. That can be used as basics information radiators of both project and team information. The issues may be confidentiality of project information that is deemed private to the company.
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1 reply by Dora Leung
Apr 05, 2018 11:06 PM
Dora Leung
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Thanks Sante! As a Programme Director, are you using LinkedIn or similar tool for stakeholder management too?
Thanks Mayte! As a project manager, are you using the instant messaging tool for project communication? For example you are using Business Skype or Yammer for project team communication, but are you using the similar tool for stakeholder management too?
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Lenka PincotChief of Staff to the CEO| Project Management InstituteParis, France
I’m also not sure what to call social media. But I saw that whenever we had a tool for instant messaging the communication was always improved. People were able to ask and get answers very quickly without organizing meetings and waiting for the communication to happen.
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1 reply by Dora Leung
Apr 05, 2018 11:04 PM
Dora Leung
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Thanks Lenka! As a project manager, are you using the instant messaging tool for project communication? For example you are using Business Skype or Yammer for project team communication, but are you using the similar tool for stakeholder management too?
I’m also not sure what to call social media. But I saw that whenever we had a tool for instant messaging the communication was always improved. People were able to ask and get answers very quickly without organizing meetings and waiting for the communication to happen.
Thanks Lenka! As a project manager, are you using the instant messaging tool for project communication? For example you are using Business Skype or Yammer for project team communication, but are you using the similar tool for stakeholder management too?
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Apr 06, 2018 8:39 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Currently Asana. Before Slack and Lync.
For stakeholder management I don’t use any instant messaging because that is much better with face to face communication and more formal tools such as facilitated workshops. Stakeholders requires much more focus and effort to manage them well. Instant messaging is very useful to get quick answers to short questions where waiting would cause idle time of the working team.
Thanks Mayte! As a project manager, are you using the instant messaging tool for project communication? For example you are using Business Skype or Yammer for project team communication, but are you using the similar tool for stakeholder management too? Saving Changes...
Hi Dora, I am not sure the tools you mention are social media tools, but perhaps so. Linkedin is now becoming a social media tool, so I would include that one. That can be used as basics information radiators of both project and team information. The issues may be confidentiality of project information that is deemed private to the company.
Thanks Sante! As a Programme Director, are you using LinkedIn or similar tool for stakeholder management too?
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1 reply by Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
Apr 06, 2018 7:59 AM
Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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Not for stakeholder management, but maybe stakeholder occasional viewing ;-)
I do use collaboration platforms (Yammer, Jam) and messaging services (WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber) extensively with project teams. But these tools need to be used in the appropriate context.
The risk is in duplication of the message or (even worse) missing out on required recipients when overlapping two channels together.
The communication strategy in such projects needs to be crisply defined and the context of every channel must be spelled out there for all project participants.
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2 replies by Dora Leung and Karan Shah
Apr 06, 2018 4:08 PM
Dora Leung
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Thanks Karan! Can I contact you privately for more information please?
Apr 08, 2018 10:57 PM
Karan Shah
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Sure, Dora. Can be contacted by the inbox system on the site.
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Michael MirabelliPM II| MODEC International Inc.Katy, Tx, United States
I believe that Social Media platforms can (and will) continue to influence communication within project teams. Managing global teams it is important to utilize the tools available to improve communication any way possible, however, it is important that traditional social media use and accounts are segregated between personal and professional lives.
An example of how social media platforms are used on my projects is WhatsApp. It is very common for WhatsApp groups to be created for various specific activities or task forces to keep all relevant parties quickly updated and connected. Take as example a critical fabrication activity by which you can keep the buyer, engineer and fabrication personnel all on a thread to give updates and keep aligned on priorities as things are moving forward. In an age of increasing email quantity this is very targeted and useful if used properly.
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2 replies by Dora Leung and Michael Delaney
Apr 06, 2018 4:08 PM
Dora Leung
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Thanks Michael! Can I contact you privately for more information please?
Apr 09, 2018 12:03 AM
Michael Delaney
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Michael The WhatsApp can be a good tool and is relatively secure and makes sharing much easier. I have also heard good things about Slack but have not used it yet
Dora, I am a heavy user of instant messages in projects and groups of projects mainly using Whatsapp, also tried slack. I had some really good experience managing people virtually and on colocation. I had some inputs here I will try to find it. Saving Changes...
skype could be an option, however, It is not practical in many remote sites because of signal strength or could be banned in the country. I had 4 projects at the same time Algeria, Australia, Kuwait and Oman. I had a coordinator in Dubai. Coordinator job was mainly is to make sure that all communications is happening. We established whatapp groups for each project including myself PM, the team of the project and coordinator. Every day in the morning I would receive a report by Email of the status, in brief. However, more details were in conversations in WhatsApp. The coordinator was building all reports professionally and send it on a weekly base. We hardly had any connection in Algeria Sahara Desert site and it was our major project, therefore I was based there most of the time. Groups on whatsapp was a saver, you could write offline and once you get internet off you go.
