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The development of speech allowed people to communicate ideas, enabling them to collaborate towards building the impossible. Humanity's greatest achievements have arisen through speech, while its greatest failures stem from its absence.
Stephen Hawking1993 British Telecom - 'Hawking' TV commercialCommunication is integral to every aspect of everyday life, and in project management it serves as an absolute foundation. It is a tool that can bring great benefits, but might also cause chaos and misunderstanding.
The same applies to gardening: if we cultivate plants at the wrong time of year, they will not grow or develop properly. However, if we perform all the activities in accordance with the art of gardening, we will enjoy beautiful vegetation for a long time.
So what skills are worth developing to support both personal growth and the success of your team?
Let us start with the results of a study.
A dream garden
Effective communication in the project
In the “PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2023” study we surveyed almost 54,000 people from 46 countries to determine the skills they see as crucial for their career development in the next five years.
The three most desired competences indicated by individuals whose work requires specialized skills are:
- adaptability to change (83%)
- critical thinking (81%)
- collaboration skills (79%)
People whose work does not require specialized skills also prioritize the adaptability to change (55%). Moreover, non-specialized employees expect that collaboration skills (51%) will play a more important role to them than critical thinking skills (48%).
In both respondent groups, leadership competences and analytical skills rank next.
Question: How important will the following skills be to your career in the next five years?
(Showing only ‘very important’ and ‘extremely important’ responses)
Project managers (hereinafter PMs) reading the results of the above study will ask themselves a basic question: how to effectively develop the indicated competences in the project team? Where to start?
From our experience, it is worth starting with collaboration skills, or more precisely, with one of its components, namely effective team communication, which serves as a solid foundation for developing other competences of the future.
Why? Let us think of effective communication of the project team as a garden full of colors, flowers and fruits. Just as a garden creates a friendly environment for various types of activities, effective communication within a team is essential to develop collaboration skills.
The Toolbox Essential for a Good Gardener
Utilizing available resources for communication
Before a team of gardeners starts their initial work in the garden, they check what tools are available and what can be accomplished with them.
When communicating in a team, we should remember about the limits of our own competence: when sending a message, we only have control over how it will be conveyed. The way the message is received and interpreted depends on the skills of the recipients. So why not work on developing our own toolbox, namely on precisely conveying intentions and formulating information in an accessible way, in a language tailored to the recipient’s perceptual abilities.
Why not lead conscious communication and simultaneously practice two skills: talking and observing the conversation. Let us give other team members time to speak, space for questions and feedback. Try to meet the person, not the position or the role.
By building such authentic communication, we strengthen the sense of respect and trust among team members. This way, we prepare a solid basis for colleagues to openly share unpopular yet crucial opinions, such as ‘I don't know’ , ‘it's difficult’ , ‘bad news’, ‘it doesn't work’, and so on.
Let us remember that the ability to actively listen is one of the most valuable instruments we as humans possess.
1 M. Bartyzel, "Tailor-made software", ed. Hellion 2015
Tips for PM
Selection of plants for the designed garden
Getting to know the project participants and establishing rules together
Plants planted in the garden must be adapted to the climatic conditions and available care. Individual selection of flowers and shrubs increases the chances of the garden blooming the way we have envisioned.
For project communication methods to be effective, they must be tailored to the specific needs of the project team. In practice, this means that only the PM along with the team are able to develop a communication plan that would bring the desired project outcomes.
Blindly copying communication patterns from other projects carries significant risk - team members may not want to follow the principles that have worked in other circumstances. Both completely spontaneous communication and a communication plan that does not match the needs can lead to chaos and disinformation.
So let us work together with the team to develop a comprehensive agreement on internal and external communication. Why not define goals, principles, responsibilities, forms of communication and its frequency together? Let us remember about all the elements of communication present in the project, including communication in a possible crisis situation.
A decent communication plan fulfills four main functions:
It introduces transparency in the team's work,
facilitates decision-making,
strengthens stakeholder engagement,
accelerates actions.
Does your current project communication plan fulfill these four functions? Regular verification of the plan effectiveness and its potential alterations should evolve into a common practice within every project team.
Tips for PM
Garden care
Communication care
Garden care involves many different activities, e.g. watering, fertilizing, replanting flowers. This set of activities has one goal in common: providing plants with appropriate conditions for development.
Getting to know your conversation partners means trying to understand their perspective. In other words, discovering their needs. However, these needs are often not directly signaled. We can minimize the risk of misunderstanding by asking questions skillfully. Whoever asks, directs the conversation.
When we ask about benefits or issues, we suggest immediately to the recipient the direction of thinking they should follow in their response. Such narrowing can be as tempting as it is dangerous. In order to facilitate more fruitful communication, let us pose questions neutrally, particularly at the outset of a discussion about a new topic. This approach increases the willingness of team members to share their own observations. By formulating neutral questions, we create an opportunity for better mutual understanding and for noticing a greater number of aspects of the given issue. This directly translates into the depth of comprehension regarding the project’s requirements and, consequently, the effectiveness of team cooperation.
What if someone doesn’t say anything at all, or on the contrary, bombards us with a flood of words?
In such a case, conversation participants usually feel overwhelmed and do not understand the sender's message.To enhance the quality of communication, let us employ the paraphrasing technique, which serves two important functions: firstly, it guards us against misunderstandings, and secondly, it demonstrates our focus on someone. Paraphrasing can assume varying levels of formality, such as ‘if I understood correctly…’ or ‘Have I omitted something important?’ or ‘Oh, the point is… ?’
By expressing the interlocutor's message in our own words, we improve the overall "atmosphere" of the conversation, promote active listening and develop common solutions more effectively.
Tips for PM
Climate changes
Change Management in the project
The ability to adapt to a dynamic environment is crucial. In the past, we protected the garden against strong frost and wind, but in recent years the winters have become much milder. These days, dry and hot summers pose a much greater threat to the conditions of plants. In response to these changes, gardeners install appropriate irrigation systems.
Introducing changes, and with them leaving the comfort zone and breaking away from established habits, has become an integral part of projects. There are two elements that have a positive impact on the success of the introduced changes:
- Efficient change management (change control, adapting to changes, business case validation, risk management),
- A “soft” approach to change management, meaning familiarizing the project team with new solutions.
For new solutions to be accepted and effectively implemented, it is necessary to ensure support for the changes introduced, combined with well-considered communication in this regard. The entire project team should be informed about the planned changes, including their scope and expected consequences for the entire team as well as individual roles.
Most often, the main responsibility for the change management process lies with the PM supported by the PMO team, while the initiated changes affect a much wider group of stakeholders.
Tips for PM
Gardening is a year-round task
A few final words
This text is a compilation of knowledge and many years of experience with PMO work on various projects.
The included tips are universal, regardless of the size, nature or location of the project, they can find its application in daily teamwork. Just as a blooming garden creates a friendly environment for outdoor activities, effective communication in a project facilitates collaboration and makes achieving project goals much easier.
PwC offers a wide range of support in the field of communication: we transfer knowledge, introduce communication standards, improve cooperation between various stakeholders, act as Change Managers, and implement modern technological solutions. We build bridges of understanding, enabling teams to cooperate effectively and accomplish ambitious objectives. Effective communication is the strength of our PMO team and it has been appreciated by our business partners for years.
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