Communicating Effectively

I have a responsibility as a project manager (PM) to try to communicate effectively with various members of my team and key stakeholders. This requires diplomacy. My communications should be concise and focused and they should be influenced by my spirit, attitude, timing, and the personality of recipients.  (Laureate Education, Inc.)

With that said, I’d like to share my reactions to our multimedia presentation on communications that shared the same request for status and deliverables – in three different modalities. They were E-mail, voicemail and face-to-face.

The e-mail message to Mark, while not marked urgent, conveyed a need for an immediate response.

The voicemail message was direct, calm, and offered Mark an e-mail option for sending requested data.

While the face-to-face message was friendly, it did not convey the same level of urgency. It almost seemed Mark’s data was a request rather than a necessity.

Concluding, I believe a PM should communicate with team members to discern their communication preferences. For example, some stakeholders may respond to informal communications, yet pre-planned interactions are required. (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer, 2008)

All pre-planned communications should be delivered with a prescribed frequency, an understood time frame for responses, and clear rules of participation. (Laureate Education, Inc.)

Works cited

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Stolovich, H. (nd) Communicating with Stakeholders. Laureate Education, Inc., Baltimore, MD.