EVERY project goes through a phase of planning, organising and taking action. However the key for a successful project is always overlooked COMMUNICATION.
Communication is important in order to understand a required task, resolve conflicts, dealing with support staff, expedite necessary actions and decisions, minimise negative interferences and secure acceptance for the completed project deliverables.Hurdles in communication The very nature of the project is that it is unique and the same system may not be applicable every time. Therefore an effective communication is the key link to project performance and success.
The role that stakeholders play in a project varies a lot from one stakeholder to the other and therefore what interests one, might not be the same for the others. Even when stakeholders are members of the same organization, communicating with senior management differs from communicating with peers and team members. Also, one should take into account the employees background; whether it is education, culture and more important the language spoken.
A fine balance
Project management (PM) is a balance between art and science. The science part can be mastered easily than the art. The science part covers learning and practicing the processes and areas that PM has identified as a prequisite for becoming a 'project manager'. These processes explain how to initiate, plan, implement and close a project while addressing the areas of managing project scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk, procurement and integrating them. It gives the necessary methodology to develop the project plan and resource requirements, how to develop the project budget, assign team responsibilities, respond to risks, buy products and services, administer contracts, among many others.
While the art part covers the core skills for a project manager, which will help him to master and succeed in communicating with endless stakeholders, regardless the role they play in the project. Those skills can be best viewed from the skills that are identified as emotional intelligence (EI).
Dr. Robert K. Cooper, a business Guru and New York Times best-selling author of The Other 90% defined emotional intelligence as the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and intelligence of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.
Conquering Emotional intelligence
EI can be grouped as: personal competence and social competence.
Personal competency involves managing and understanding ourselves, which is achieved through individual self-awareness and selfmanagement.
Social Competency focuses on how relationships can be handled, which is achieved through social awareness and relationship management.
Successful communication with stakeholders is not a mission impossible but needs high emotional competency that can be learned and developed.
In fact, research shows that emotional competency increases with age. People in the age group of 40s and 50s have a greater emotional competency skill than people below that age group.
Factors to be considered in establishing an effective communication structure include:
Recognising that the attitudes and actions will lead the tone of the relationship
Project resource and communication structure should not be very rigid
Roles and responsibilities should be clear
Communication across the teams should be clear and transparent
Encouraging an approach that seeks to resolve problems early and without escalating up the management chain unnecessarily.
By Bassam Samman
© Qatar Today 2007
