Communication – Your Antidote to Project Stress!

You can never put a value on Communication or the lack of it. Simply put it is invaluable and outright precious to every sphere of your life. More so when it comes to your work and professional success.

Take a quick walk down memory lane and you will find lot of those small incidents that could have turned better or changed decisions in your favour. It can be as simple as getting buy-in for your idea, saving a friendship or winning that big deal you have worked tirelessly for.

So what is it about communication that makes it so crucial for us irrespective of who, what and where we are?

From my experience, there are 4 specific elements that must be attended to in all our communications.

Information Flow in our Projects

Organizations across the world run multiple projects simultaneously involving multi departments and geographies as well. Some projects may be with in a single team and straight forward and some may be strategic in nature. Thereby, organizations have to be nimble to handle varying levels of project complexity and execution. Add to it the cultural differences or preferences that comes in with a diverse workforce.

So, a typical communication challenges list would look like:

With the above glimpse of the mess we are all capable of getting ourselves into, let us take a pragmatic approach on how to turn each of these obstacles into opportunities for

Emails & Spreadsheets

Ah! A project manager's eternal love Not exactly. Project Managers across organizations are synonymous to emails and spreadsheets for their project team members. It is sad but true.

Emails and excel sheets are powerful communication tools in their own right but do not always fit in the greater scheme of project management activities. You cannot wait for emails or excel updates when you are fire-fighting or amidst major product/service release with the ever so tight deadlines right around the corner.

Just take the following aspects of managing projects that need our utmost attention:-

And imagine addressing these via emails. Not a great idea is it?

Each of these require beyond the edge planning, transparent and timely communication via a medium that enables real-time information sharing with all involved and most importantly one that is relied upon by one and all.

Emails are great for not so urgent notes, ideas and plans. Or when you have to reach a wide audience spread across various time zones. You can rely on emails for one on one conversations and discussions mainly involving confidential information.

Consensus building, troubleshooting and ideation cannot happen over emails and excel sheets. They require the human touch, instant collaboration and quick answers.

And these are the very building blocks of a successful project delivery that teams rely on collaborative software and platforms. The primary benefits being:–

Remote Teams spread across geographies and time zones

Technology has reduced boundaries like never before and distances do not matter when it comes to running your business. This also means increased access to the global talent pool to build the best team possible for your projects.

Having remote teams is the new business order as the benefits far outweigh any perceived drawbacks.

A business may deploy remote teams for better work-life balance, proximity to customer locations, delivery centres or cost-effective locations in terms of labour & real-estate, compliance & regulatory requirements etc.

Now, to ensure maximum output and optimum success of the remote team model, the communication aspects must be well-addressed.

Time-zone lags & information delays are the most common communication disruptor when it comes to delivering with remote teams at the helm. And these can be best handled by defining:-

The most common strategy deployed is that of having regular checkpoint meetings at a time that is conducive to stakeholders from different time zones. "Follow the sun" is a successful and widely popular model deployed for collaborating with teams at either ends of the globe.

Having a business model is one thing and running that model successfully is an uphill task. Visionary Project Managers are quick to lay out

With the above actions rightly executed, we move closer to strengthening our business model, deliver optimally & provide a thriving environment for our teams to perform and excel. All of them with a direct positive impact on the customer happiness index and revenue.

Use of multiple tools & Communication styles and preferences

This one is a bummer! Major project discrepancies begin when the teams start building their own "source of truth". A highly dangerous trait that must be curbed with utmost diligence. Within no time you start seeing information silos being created that send mixed signals to the team members.

And before you realize there is absolute chaos. No one knows which source to rely on, what data to trust and present.

The consequences and disruption to your overall project plan and execution is just unimaginable. And the most heart burning aspects are:-

Worst nightmare of any project manager ever! So how do we prevent from this data storm?

The foremost thing to do is have your “ground rules” established. Use your experience and knowledge of the company culture to understand what works best for the team.

Note: nobody likes managing data, writing updates, maintaining time logs etc.

The idea is to provide mediums that encourage your team to be forthcoming with sharing updates preferably very precise and on time. So what must the ground rules be?

When you have a platform that is easy to adopt, obtaining team buy-in becomes easy. We all want to spend our time on things that we excel at, have passion for and love doing. And like it or not, giving updates is never part of the above list

Also, being the Project Manager, take time to understand how your teams like to communicate & what is most time saving and efficient for them.

Help them realize the benefits of having access to the right information augurs well for them. And the fact that ambiguity can never deliver tangible outcomes or anything of business value and it is highly detrimental to the overall success of the project, the team and the business itself.

Building Rapport and Customer Confidence

I have saved the most important challenge at the very end of this chapter for a very simple reason that "Customer" is the North Pole, the guiding light or the very glue that ties everything we have discussed so far.

The business, the products, services, projects all exist because of the customer and the success of each one of these endeavours lies in the success of the customer.

For the Customer, success is outcomes that have business value. Independent products and services mean nothing to them. Hence, the project manager must himself have the customer’s mind set the moment he sets foot on the project.

It is about having a clear understanding of not only the customer's requirements and business needs, but also the outcomes that the customer so very much desires, the vision he wants realized and the mission to be achieved.

Easier said than done! You need to be one with the customer in terms of articulating, helping him shape his project's mission and finally deliver it. This needs more than the technology know how or the implementation expertise.

Remember that you are not the only one with these skills. There are lot of other options in the market, but the customer chose you for a reason – Alignment with his definition of value and success.

You have a good start now, but how do you maintain and build upon it?

You can set a few things in motion as soon as you take the reins in your hand and build upon during the course of the project:

I know it is not an exhaustive list but one that is derived from years of hard work and experience. And if you successfully manage to follow half of it, you will have realized what many project managers still dream to achieve.

And yes, as I said - the list goes on, but the above points have always helped me and many of my colleagues in good stead under trying circumstances. No project comes without its own share of hiccups. Things will and always go awry once in a while and that's why it's fun to be a high performing Project Manager!