Project communication

- All the world's a stage and each project manager plays many parts. But in order to play your part, you need to make sure you know your audience. You might not think of your project as having an audience, but it does. They're probably not laughing, cheering, and clapping, but your audience is listening and they're interested. The way you communicate should depend on your audience. If you think about it, that's true for most of your communication. You might share with a good friend that you really like wool sweaters, but you probably wouldn't tell your supervisor. You might tell your doctor about the pain in your neck, but you wouldn't usually tell a person on the train. It's the same with your projects. Once you understand your project's audience, you can start categorizing who gets what information. In general, there are three different groups of people that you'll want to consider for your audience. They're the stakeholders, supporters, and spectators. The first group are the stakeholders. These are the people who have a stake in your project. These could include project managers, upper management, team members, vendors, and customers. These people have something riding on the project. They could even be your competitors. The next group are your supporters. These are the people who will help you finish your project. They help you with your work without actually working on the project. These could include finance, IT support, facilities, lawyers, and quality assurance. They're the background chorus for your project. They can help you succeed, but they won't be held to blame if the project fails. The final group is the spectators. These are the people who aren't stakeholders or supporters. They may be interested in your work, but the project doesn't directly impact them. This may include project managers from other departments. The spectators won't be interested in your day-to-day operations. You won't want to email the finance department every time your meeting has a room change. Instead, you'll just want a simple way to update them on your project's status. So your plan needs to address each group and their needs, then show how to communicate to these groups and what information to share. So to do this, you'll want to create an audience list. This list should have three groups, stakeholders, supporters, and spectators. Then you should add roles to each group. Be sure to add roles and not actual people. A lot of times, people will be promoted or moved to different roles so it's better to understand the communication based on the role and not the individual. The audience list should be very specific on how to communicate with each group. You should specify one-to-one or group meetings, email lists, and reports. Don't just say something generic like email, phone, or meeting. It should also show each group's communication needs, how much information does each group need to know? Project communication can get complex quickly so when you create your list, keep it clear and simple. You don't want to spend your time trying to communicate the wrong information to the wrong people.