Communication Management

When I consider project management, I find that managing what needs to be done in a project is rather easy... as long as I am the only person I have to manage.

What really becomes a challenge is trying to manage communication with various people. I have to manage communication with clients, partners, vendors and employees. It can be a daunting task.

For a professional project manager, there are tools like MS Project that can help bring things together. I don't like that sort of tool for the projects I manage because it offers far more than I want to learn. I don't think in terms of a Gantt Chart. I don't like to worry about some of the things it manages.... especially since my projects have 2 or 3 resources to worry about.

You can go for something online like BaseCamp. It is a pretty good interface that sends email reminders of when something needs to be done. But, it doesn't answer the real problem with project management... and that is communication management.

I use Outlook for everything. I have it synchronized with my Gmail so that I can get my email on the road or on my mobile phone. The problem is that I receive a few hundred emails in a given day. That means sorting into folders and setting up reminders (if you need them). But, it is still a daunting task.

One of the things we implemented for my web development projects is a weekly development meeting. My project manager and I have a weekly meeting to discuss the status of each site. We have a checklist on each site that we go through in detail during that meeting.

Now, we still talk through the week about projects. We still email, Skype or phone each other, but the face to face time provide a significant enhancement to our process.

"But," you may ask, "how does that help with communication with vendors, partners or clients?"

"Well," I would say, "I am glad you asked that question!"

We take that opportunity to review what we are waiting on from our partners and vendors. If we have already sent an email and don't hear back from them, we call them.

The same is true for our clients. Minimally, we compose an email that states exactly where the project is, what we are waiting on from others and what we think people are waiting for us to do. If we have missed anything, it gives our client an opportunity to call us on it. This is just our attempt at providing a greater level of transparency in what we do.

We aren't perfect at it, but it has made a huge difference in how we communicate. How do you manage communication?

What have you done that has seen success.... or even failure?