Why communication is that important?

I thought you might be interested to hear about how we’ve been communicating in the last two projects I have been working on recently. It might give some of you an idea why communication is key in the success of a project.

The first project I was part of, aimed to implement an internal HR Shared Services Centre in Europe for 13 countries. The team was made up of a project manager, subject matter experts and three team leads:

• A business process design team lead
• A change and communication team lead
• A technology team lead

As you can see one of the team members was dedicated to the communication. That initially surprised me. But then I discovered how much work it was to identify all the stakeholders, rate their influence, rate their importance, prepare the right communication materials (PowerPoint, Brochure, etc…), meet with the stakeholders, give them a good project understanding and updates, engage with them regularly, etc… I have to say that I have been amazed by the amount of work and energy that we have put into it.

The other project aimed to include additional countries within the same HR Shared Services Centre. Quite a similar project but with a lot less communication! Did we assume that we have made enough communication earlier on? Did we think there was no need due to the small numbers of countries in scope? Anyhow we deployed three additional countries without going through most of the “change & comms” tasks listed above.

Two totally different projects in their approach! Two successful projects at the end! So why should we communicate? I can think of two main reasons. And please give me some more if I forget some key ones.

• Good communication improves the quality and the effectiveness of the work done. Whereas no communication creates in most cases some tensions, misunderstandings and relevant level of stress impacting the outcome of the project.
• Good communication ensures the project long term success.

I have read recently (and unfortunately after these projects) a book called “Crucial conversations – Tools for talking when stakes are high” written by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. This book explains what the ONE THING to succeed is in a crucial conversation where opinions vary, stakes are high and emotions run strong. It says “at the core of every successful conversation lies the free flow of relevant information. People openly and honestly express their opinions, share their feelings, and articulate their theories. They willingly and capably share their views even when their ideas are controversial or unpopular…Now put a label on this spectacular talent – it’s called dialogue”

Let’s think about a project as a “crucial conversation” (which you will have anyway at a stage during your project). Well it seems to me that communication is about establishing a dialogue with your stakeholders, explaining what the project is about indeed but it is also about taking decisions with them. And that’s precisely what we did during the first project. As a result we’ve been live successfully

• having the work done in time without having to work "crazy" hours
• having the project team members satisfied of the work done
• and having the stakeholders/end users ready and supportive

On the other hand, it seemed that the second project was not “crucial” and that establishing a dialogue was not a priority anymore. As a result we ended up with a

• Lack of end users availability during the information gathering phase
• Lack of end users understanding of the objectives of the project
• Lack of end users support at Go Live
• Higher project team member stress
• Lots of rework due to missing information during the gathering phase
• But also higer budget than initially planned

All that to say that YES communication takes time but YES communication is worth doing it! If you have similar example I would be pleased to hear from it.