Project Managers Communicate

Communication is very important for the project manager.  A project manager must master the art of communication in order to ensure project success.  Being able to communicate in person, verbally and in written form is imperative.  Successful project managers are constantly communicating. There is really no such thing as over communication.

One type of communication that often doe not live up to the hype is email.  In my experience, most project communication via email is not effective.  I have received hastily compiled email status reports that have obvious mistakes or are a rehash of a previous status report.  I would have rather gotten a text or a tweet than this disaster of an email.  Another area is when people become too casual in the use of email and forget important details. Commonly I find that people report of subjects that they believe the reader already knows and leave out crucial details.

One practice that I commonly do is to call first and have a conversation.  I will follow-up with a email detailing the discussion.

Another issue is that email communication does not provide feedback to the sender.  Feedback is important so that the sender knows that the receiver understands the message. Lastly, there is too much noise. I commonly receive a couple hundred emails a day, there is no way I can possibly answer every one. My project managers know to mark the emails so I will pay attention to them.

Communication is important for project managers.  It is just as important to know the method of communication to ensure the message is received and understood.  In my opinion, email is not the preferred method for communication unless it is to clarify or document previous discussions.