Comments

12 responses to “Is It Possible to Over-Communicate In Project?”

1. 

   June 9, 2009

   Will

   I think you can communicate both too early and too much, and a good example is changing requirements.

   When the requirements change so often that the team doesn't have the time to digest the first change when the second one hits, is it worth communicating the first one at all? I would suggest waiting until the requirements are a little more stable.

   Maybe this also comes down to how the changes are communicated – ie, in a structured way or ad-hoc, but still I believe communicating stuff too early just adds noise and confusion.
2. 

   June 10, 2009

   Pawel Brodzinski

   Good point Will. Requirements management is an area where communication should be organized in some way or it'll bring a mess to planning.

   Any other areas which should be managed more carefully when it comes to communication?
3. 

   June 10, 2009

   Projects with People

   The comment regarding too much or too early is also very valid when talking about communication between a client and a professional services company. (My background) When communication has a contractual/legal impact it should be very precise. It should also only happen if it is factual and confirmed. Communicating "rumours" in a professional services engagement can have an impact on your legal position.

   Communication in this environment happens at several levels and I believe these levels have different rules. Communication within the project is different than communicating with suppliers or clients.
4. 

   June 10, 2009

   Pawel Brodzinski

   Communication with a client is generally a tricky area. While being as transparent as possible is appealing idea for me I don't find it feasible.

   I consider communication with customers more a game than a totally honest and open discussion with e.g your spouse. I'd love to be always completely frank with our customers but it's not so rare when it backfires.

   Actually I learn it the hard way now, but form me it is still all about people you work with. There are these who you can be honest with and those who will use your every word against you. The whole thing is to learn who is who.

   Anyway, I didn't want to go there with this article. That's the story for another post.
5. 

   June 10, 2009

   Sandy

   Of course it's possible to over-communicate and under-inform at the same time. We live in a world full of communication and we spend a great deal of time filtering it. In projects I think it is very important to put quality over quantity in communication, otherwise team members start to tune each other out. Sending irrelevant information is just as disrespectful as sending none. I work in government and we are masters of quantity over quality. Communication must follow a structure or it quickly becomes counter-productive.
6. 

   June 10, 2009

   Pawel Brodzinski

   Sandy,

   To be honest I'm not convinced that communication must follow a structure or it becomes counterproductive. Actually pretty often I worked in project which had no structure for communication whatsoever and we were able to do it well.

   On the other hand as far as you face situation you describe – plenty of quantity and not so much quality some formalism can be warmly welcome.

   By the way, it is interesting why I didn't considered low-quality communication as a problem. Is it possible the problem never really struck me so far?
7. 

   June 12, 2009

   Michael

   I really like your conclusion: "…risk of over-communicating is lower than risk of under-communicating…"

   I was thinking this as I was reading the earlier paragraphs.

   I also agree with some of the comments about requirements and communicating with clients.

   I think the biggest problem with communication in software project management is not over-communicating, but mis-communicating. It is perfectly okay to communicate as early and as often as possible, but just make sure what you're saying is right.
8. 

   June 12, 2009

   Peter

   The Lazy Project Manager says:

   Communication Breakdown –
   Avoiding having a nervous breakdown and going insane

   There is, to my mind, a great book – Alpha Project Managers by Andy Crowe – it talks about ‘what the top 2% know that everyone else does not’ and it certainly identifies communication as a key area that top project managers excel at.

   The book, based on a survey of 5,000 project managers, states in its findings:

   ‘Good communication is comprised of more than how the message is delivered. The information itself, the method used, and the timing with which it is delivered all contributes to effective communication.’

   Communication on a project is a two way process. You are communicating out and you are receiving communication back at you and the usual complexities of filters and noise typically confuse the process of giving and receiving clear, accurate and understandable information.
   Communication is also sequential, communicated through chains of people, which will add that ‘Chinese whispers’ effect – either intentional or accidental.
   Add to that the sheer volume of communication these days, email, phone calls (landline and mobile), written, presented, verbal and so on, then life can be very tough for project managers to learn what they need to learn and to share what they need to share.

   I was taught a truth in my early project management days – reporting is not communicating!

   The fact that the critical facts and important truths are buried somewhere in a report that the right people may be in possession of does not, in any way, mean that they have received the message.

   I have also learnt that to waste time and effort in ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ communication, typically email these days, is truly pointless and will distract the project manager from the real issues. I know building an email trail that, to put it bluntly, ‘covers your ass’ is easy to do but far better results can come from directing those same efforts in really effective communication.

   Effective communication is about isolating the critical information, utilising the optimum communication method for the person (or people) that you need to communicate with, and delivering that information at the appropriate time. I would also add that to ensure that you receive the right information back to you then you need to educate people on what information you need, how you would like to receive that information and when.

   http://www.thelazyprojectmanager.com
9. 

   June 12, 2009

   Pawel Brodzinski

   Michael,

   That was my first thought when I started looking at the subject. It's a common situation when we suck at communicating not telling people enough yet somehow people seem so afraid o over-communication.
10. 

    June 12, 2009

    Pawel Brodzinski

    Peter,

    I think you stressed one key thing – reporting doesn't equal communicating. What more – we rarely report to our project teams so even if it worked well I guess people would still remain under-informed.
11. 

    April 6, 2010

    grace kwiatkowska

    i sure would like it if people who decide to post a blog in english had a superior command of the language and its nuances. i thought i would look forward to reading this blog, but i was distracted by the sentence structure, grammar challenges and overall stilted use of colloquial english.
12. 

    April 7, 2010

    Pawel Brodzinski

    Grace,

    English isn’t my native language and I never hid the fact. This unfortunately means mistakes in my writing will happen, although I hope there will be fewer of them over time.

    If it’s language (not good enough) and not the content which makes you not following the blog I’m sorry to hear this but that’s also a good news for me. This means the content here is decent which is always nice to hear.