Download difficulty in communicating with the appropriate clarity and detail

Communication
January 13, 2015
M. Cornacchia
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Effective Communication
• Organizations that communicate more effectively
have more successful projects
• A good communication process keeps stakeholders
engaged and project teams motivated
• Effective communication doesn’t just convey facts. It
makes people understand the role they play in the
project
• Effective communication engages everyone who
touches the project
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Achieving Effective Communication
• Project managers and their teams must learn to
speak in the language of business
• Organizations must help everyone learn to say the
right things to the right people
http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Knowledge%20Center/Communications_whitepaper_v2.ashx
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Essential Role of Communications
The most crucial success factor in project management is effective
communications to all
The majority of organizations have opportunities to identify problem areas and
chart a course to improve the effectiveness of their project communications.
Characteristics of High Performing Organizations:
•
Communicate more frequently across all topics, including communicating the
strategy/business benefit.
•
Communicate more frequently than low performers in all ways of delivering the
message
•
Create formal communications plans for nearly twice as many projects
•
Have Project communications plans that are more than three times as effective.
http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Business-Solutions/The-High-Cost-Low-Performance-The-Essential-Role-of-Communications.ashx
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Poor communication causes most IT
project failures
• Communication is a component of a project at every
stage
– Managers need to communicate the objectives,
expected results and budget restrictions to
everyone involved.
– Managers need to determine who to communicate
with, when to communicate, and how to
communicate.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2543770/it-management/survey--poor-communication-causes-most-it-project-failures.html
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Ineffective Communication
• There is a fundamental difficulty in communicating
with the appropriate clarity and detail
• Lack of effective communication dramatically
increases the risk projects face and the likelihood
that they will fall short
• Ineffective communication is to blame for more than
half of projects that fail to meet business goals
.
http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Knowledge%20Center/Communications_whitepaper_v2.ashx
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Lack of Communication
• Communications facilitate effective decisions across
the team
•
Where communications breakdown, the
effectiveness of the decisions being made can
rapidly turn bad
http://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=799#Comms
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Communication Failure:
Hurricane Katrina
Effectively managing any project, especially one responding to an
emergency situation, demands an open communication network from
top to bottom.
•
•
The communication network was never created.
Agencies were unwilling to share information with other agencies
The ability to communicate is really tested when separate
organizations must communicate and coordinate their efforts.
At least four organizations, each with their own organizational
cultures and strong leaders, were involved.
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The Price of Poor Communication
http://www.pmi.org/learning/effective-communication-better-project-management-6480
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Communication Failure:
NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter Project
In 1999 a Mars space probe from NASA was ‘lost’. A number
of the failures related to project management according to
the report of the subsequent investigation.
Communications and training within the project had been
inconsistent
Reason for the failure: The problem was found to be poor
communication between, rather than within, different
teams.
https://jiscinfonetcasestudies.pbworks.com/w/page/59388972/Why%20Projects%20Fail%3A%20NASA’s%20Mars%20Climate%20Orbiter%20
Project
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Strategies to Improve Communication
•
Close the communications gap around business benefits
– Take ownership and better communicate the strategic and business benefits of
projects to those responsible for their implementation.
•
Tailor communications to different stakeholder groups
– Understand that various stakeholder groups use language differently and tailor
communications accordingly
• Acknowledge the value of project management, including project management
communications
– Use standardized project management practice. A formal communications plan
must be adaptable and suitable to all stakeholders
http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Business-Solutions/The-High-Cost-Low-Performance-The-Essential-Role-ofCommunications.ashx
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Verbal and Non Verbal Communication
7% of communication is verbal
38% is conveyed through the quality of voice—tone,
volume, speed and pitch
55% is through posture, movements, gestures, facial
expressions, breathing and skin-color changes
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90% of a project manager's time is spent communicating what is going to be done
Never take for granted that the receiver will interpret the message the same way as the sender
intended it.
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