| Written by Pawel Brodzinski | Being a project manager is a kind of job which brings a lot of occasions to communicate with different people. You talk internally with a project team; you even try to organize their work. What even more important you talk with client representatives.
You meet different people on the other side: stakeholders, fellow project managers, quality engineers, specialists, possibly a bunch of high ranks too. Most of the time you need something from them. Most of the time the way you talk with them can make the whole thing easier or worse.
The clue here is to know who you talk with. And I don't say about jobs or ranks, but about characters. In this job you meet all sorts and there's no single universal way of communication.
Sometimes your fellow PM on client side is a type of great organizer and all you have to do is to give him regularly enough input from you to get things rolling. Possibly he'll appreciate cyclic meetings and todo list with assigned responsibilities.
Sometimes person on the other side needs to have a part of her job done by yourself and you need to start talking with a lot people trying to go through bureaucratic rules of the company. You'll need to make a lot of phone calls since direct contact brings always better results when you expect to get information.
Another thing is which communication method is mostly liked by a person you communicate with. A gal who never turns off her mobile or a guy who gets sick whenever he needs to call somebody? Someone who will call you twice a day to spend half an hour talking about minor issues or someone who reach your phone only when emergency appears? A person who will answer each of your emails or the one who never answers emails since it's possible to give you some ass-covers that way? Somebody who feels safe in face to face discussions and is a tough negotiator or Mister Shy Guy who is stressed each time the official meeting is called?
Depending on a type of person you have on the other side and a task you try to complete the communication channel you use should differ. If you need to get the job done and you don't care much about formalities, try to use the most liked way of contact for person you need to communicate with. If you need to get some official information try to choose people who will answer your emails. If you need to buy some time for your team, look for places where you aim your asks for clarifications and don't expect quick answers.
Of course the bigger the project is and the bigger the client organization is the more options you have. Sometimes it'll be helpful since the project manager on the other side can be not the best person to talk with about some problems, but sometimes it's hard to find a person responsible for an issue you're trying to resolve when you have many possible choices.
Anyway, almost always there are more than one or two options to choose. Using different communication methods with different people wisely you can finish your project with less hassle. | |
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