by Dave Wakeman, PMP
A challenge that all PMs face is communicating effectively. This becomes even more challenging as PMs find themselves working with teams from diverse backgrounds and with different ways of expressing themselves.
As a PM, you will be faced with challenges both internally and externally, and if you have a project team that is scattered in many locations, compromised of team members from different regions and backgrounds, this only becomes more difficult.
Here are 3 ways that you can effectively make your communications more effective and avoid some of the challenges inherent in managing teams that with diverse backgrounds:
Set Clear Goals and Expectations: One of the challenges of managing projects is having to understand the best way to communicate with your team no matter what their backgrounds. You can help minimize this challenge by focusing from the outset on setting clear goals and expectations. By setting clear goals and expectations, you give your team members a definite target to hit and as the PM can navigate the tricky language and communication terrain by communicating in terms of goals and expectations. You can do this by creating a clear timeline and project benchmarks so that your team has definite objectives that they can measure their performance against.
Plan Your Communications: When you are managing a project, your primary goal is to be the facilitator of communications. As the project moves through its phases, it becomes easier and easier to get overwhelmed with information and not know what to communicate and what not to communicate. By planning for your communication, you can set a clear schedule and have an idea of who to talk to, when to communicate, and how it is best to get information out. A good way to plan your communications is to try and identify all of the possible stakeholders involved in your project and come up with a priority for each individual or group and to identify the best way to communicate with each stakeholder.
Empower Your Team: Because the role of project manager relies so heavily on communicating, it is often impossible to keep up with all of the demands on your time. That’s why it is important for you to use your team and stakeholders to communicate important in
formation for you. You won’t want to do this for all your information, but it can be quite effective to pass along information to certain team members that have good relationships with stakeholders and team members and encourage their assistance in getting this information into the right places. This will help relieve some of your communication burden and can also help you overcome some of your communications challenges because some of your associates may have a better relationship or communicate in a style that is more effective with certain people or groups. Empowering your team can take on many forms, but one of the most effective is to give your team members the chance to devise solutions and make mistakes. By creating an environment where there is a bias towards solving problems, you empower your team to do their best work and to know that they are going to have the support of their project manager.
This is just a starter for managing the communication process on your projects. So what tips can you share? What have you had luck with?
Dave Wakeman is an expert in organizational development working with clients on their development issues in areas such as change management, strategy, leadership and communication.
Dave is a featured writer for the Project Management Institute and appears monthly on their Voices blog. He has also been quoted extensively on organizational development, project management, and leadership in publications as varied as Minyaville.com, Dell’s TechOne Magazine, Loans.org, and SmartCEO.
He has worked with companies all over the world including American Express, the US Department of Commerce & Bureau of the Census, the City of New York, Google, Microsoft, and Madison Square Garden.