On Communication and Coordination
By Raymond Posch

Probably the single most important thing that is needed in managing a project – especially any large project – is communication and coordination. I treat them here as one activity because, in a project, the purpose of communication for the most part is not just to send information in one direction, but to solicit responses and to coordinate actions.

So “communication and coordination” is the core activity that a project manager does, day in and day out, to make a project happen. Now that is not to say that communication and coordination should be the only thing. A project without a plan is merely unorganized activity and is doomed to fail, at least by most measures that should be applied to business projects. (And believe me, there are lots of “cowboy” types that think they can just work it out as they go. Yee hah!) So planning is also absolutely critical.

The project manager must communicate frequently with the team about their tasks and deliverables, but he or she must also communicate with the customer or business sponsor, the stakeholders, senior management, and others in the organization who have a need to know about project status and need to discuss specific areas of progress and specific issues in some detail.  

What kind of communication are we talking about? Customers want to know whether issues have been resolved. Customers and users should want to know when they can see products or design drawings or mockups. Sponsors want to know how the project is doing against the planned schedule and budget. Resource managers need to know if the resource forecasts and schedule when the resources will be needed are on track. If the project is critical and/or expensive, execute management or the board will want to know if projections for completion date and total cost are staying in line with the original forecasts. And so on.

Most large organizations that have established and repeatable project management processes require the project manager to develop a communication plan early in the project. Developing a communication plan helps the project manager think through how recurring communications with specific players, including written status reports, should occur.

For example, there will likely need to be:

• a weekly status meeting with the core project team 
• a weekly status meeting with the customer or sponsor 
• a weekly status report to the core team and customer 
• a bi-weekly or monthly status meeting with key stakeholders and/or managers 
• a monthly report to senior management measuring actual progress and cost against plan 
• a quarterly project review with the PMO and/or senior management, at least on projects above a certain size, to ensure that the project is reasonably on track and dealing effectively with all serious risks that could impact the project 

Status reports to senior management will typically require that indicators of project health, based on specific kinds of conditions or business rules, be included. These indicators usually are in the form of green/yellow/red, where:

• green indicates the project is healthy in terms of schedule and budget, 
• yellow indicates that problems have occurred or might occur and appropriate actions have been taken, although with some impact on schedule or budget, and 
• red indicates that intervention by or escalation to senior management is required (usually by adding resources to the project). Red status might also mean that there are problems that cannot be readily resolved or that certain risks, known or unknown, have occurred which had serious impact on the project. 

But, aside from regular meetings and status reports, communications will often need to be spontaneous and in reaction to things that happen day to day. These communications can be face to face, over the phone, or in ad hoc meetings with the purpose of dealing with the immediate issue at hand. Face to face discussions or one-on-one phone calls should be used often because the project manager needs to know what the other person really feels about the issue, and sometimes levels of concern or frustration get suppressed or toned down in meetings. And it is good to know about real concerns and real frustrations with all the players – especially with the customer or senior management, but also with the members of the team who are the closest to the project.

It is actually hard for the project manager to communicate too much. But it can be disastrous when the project manager does not communicate enough with the project’s constituents.

Raymond Posch is publisher of Weekly PM Insights newsletter. See Ray's bio on our Meet the Experts page. He can be reached at ray@projectsuccesstips.com.

Filed under Project Management - General, Communications