Communication: The Project Life Blood
Typical project people spend a lot of time planning, organizing, doing and fixing
but often pay little heed to communication. As a result, the communication, such
as it is, may be inadequate, of poor quality, or unidirectional. In project work
there are two essential ingredients: people and the effective exchange of ideas.
Without people nothing gets done and without communication nobody knows what
to do. After all, the very nature of a project is that it has not been done before.
Communication
is like engine oil: it needs to be applied to the machinery or the machinery
will not start or, if it does, it will quickly falter and grind to a halt. And
the oil, like communication, needs to be continuously recycled and regularly
replaced with new oil as the old becomes no longer usable. But what of the quality
of the oil? Too little or too thin and it is not effective; too thick or too
much and everything just gets gummed up.
It's the
same with communication, yet how much attention do we pay to the 'quality' of
our project communication? In our new world of virtual teams where some members
never get to see each other from one project to the next, accurate exchanges
are even more important. This is especially true over the Internet where some
60% of normal person-to-person communication, the non-verbal part, is simply
removed. Even in video conferencing, this component is seriously filtered by
the medium.
For well over a year now, David Curling's Project Management Forum web site
has recognized the importance of communication, and especially the language that
we use, by hosting the Wideman Comparative
Glossary of Common Project Management Terms. This compendium of terms does
not mandate a set of meanings based on a single view point. Rather, it provides
from well respected sources various interpretations - each with its own special
flavor.
It is understandable that there may be differences of opinion over interpretation
of the more esoteric or more recent terms being used in the discipline. Surprisingly,
however, that is where there is least argument. It is with the well-established
long-term labels where arguments arise. For example, it is generally agreed that
a work breakdown structure, one of the most powerful of project management tools,
is hierarchical. However, what it consists of, how it should be expressed, and
how best it should be used causes much debate. Again, there is much confusion
over the term 'scope' and 'scope of work' and whether they are the same or different.
But above all, the Glossary describes no less than sixteen different variations
of the term 'project' - surely the very foundation of the project management
discipline itself?
In the interests of a future project management profession, is it not about
time that national organizations set aside their intellectual turf protection
to build an internationally acceptable glossary and provide it in the public
domain?
|
