The Role of the Project Manager in Communications
The role of the project manager is one of communications facilitator. That does not
mean he or she sends all of the communications. Itmeans that the projectmanager is
responsible for ensuring that communications are sent, received, and (to the degree
possible) understood. To accomplish that, the project manager can identify pre-
ferred communications modes for the critical stakeholders, assess the best means to
enable thosemodes, and ensure the integrity of the process as the project continues.
To identify preferred communications modes, the project manager should
assess a representative sample of the project’s stakeholders. In a small project, this
may be done by interviews. In larger projects, this may be accomplished by surveys.
The process and questions are discussed further in the section on the communica-
tions plan tool (Chapter 4).
Once the communications modes have been identified, the next task in the com-
munications plan—enabling those communications modes—is critical. The project
manager may need to establish e-mail protocols or telephone voice-mail etiquette.
He or she may need to invest time and energy in constructing a project Web site or
“virtual community” on the local-area network (LAN). He or she may need to iden-
tify the specific tools to be used (and tools to be avoided) based on customer and
team needs. Regardless of the choice of technology or approach, guidance needs to
be established to ensure consistent application. Without consistency, communica-
tions will eventually break down.
To ensure the integrity of the process, the project manager must test the system
occasionally to ensure that messages are being received and understood. In one
training organization, the president would occasionally plant brief, bizarre mes-
sages deep in his memoranda to test whether or not the entire message was being
received. He learned that only a handful of his staff were really reading the entire
document, and he changed his protocols as a result. The project manager who
communicates well will find ways to test the integrity of the system, both in
terms of message receipt and understanding. Just because an e-mail is marked as
“received” doesn’t ensure that it was actually read or understood. Validation
through spot-checks is a reasonable means of working to improve the quality of
message as it moves from sender to receiver. Talking to the senders about feedback
and receivers about the messages is a first step toward identifying potential gaps