Business Communications: Distributing Project Information

Reply to the following:

Within communication skills there is always room for improvement. With constantly changing technology, and a wide vocabulary of technical language within IT projects communication skills are the most import skill that has direct impact on the success of the project and is the reason behind many problems in other knowledge areas of a project, within every IT project, its professionals needs this soft skill to be successful: For project managers, managing communication involves creating, distributing, storing, retrieving and disposing of project communication based on the communication management plan (Schwalbe, 2014). Methods for communication within projects include interactive communication, push communication and pull communication.

Interactive communication is usually the most effective way at ensuring common understanding exists within a project. This form happens when two or more people interact via meetings, phone calls, or video conferencing. While effective in having common understanding of concepts and ideas, for individuals that miss the meeting or phone conference could miss key information. Pushing information is when information is sent via electronic sources or reports, however, this form of communication does not ensure the information was received. Pull communication is a form of information that is requested: for example if I send an email to a development team about the specifications of a particular item I am pulling the information. This form of communication is limited to the repository if individuals and groups receiving it and can result in unclear response and may not get information from the most qualified sources.

Schwalbe (2014) offers these suggestions to use communication tools more effectively:
- Use e-mails, texts, and messaging appropriate for the medium. If you can communicate the information better via a phone call then do so.
- Use meaningful subject lines so the readers can quickly see what information the message contains.
- The body of the email should be clear and concise as possible. (p. 425).

Likely the most common form of communication that requires effective communication is project meetings. Project meetings are important because they can set the tone for a project. A well run and articulated meeting can improve communication within a project, reinforce expectations, gain project support and support roles within a project, however, a poorly ran meeting can have the opposite effects and even cause key stakeholders to stop supporting a project all together (Schwalbe, 2014).

I think that the majority of adults have played the line communication game where six or so people are in a line and have to relay a message on memory to the next person, then after the last person gets the message it shows how disruptive the communication process can be with many people between the initial communicator and the destination of the message. In organizations with these types of structures are considered tall organizational structures. In a flat structured organization with less layers of management between workers and top managers, many advantages can be realized, such as improved communications. The communication is faster, easier and less prone to mistakes or misunderstandings. Particularly within project structures changes can be reacted to rapidly and more effectively. If the project organization structure is tall, a change to this policy by implementing a staged open door policy can improve speed, ownership and effectiveness (Burley, 2014).