In both career and business, there will inevitably be projects that will be critical to your success. If you are part of a project, you need to appreciate the value of collaboration. Collaboration, in turn, is built on effective communication. Here’s how poor communication can have an impact on your project.
Varying Expectations
Any form of communication involves encoding and decoding information by the sender and receiver respectively. We could say that good communication is when the receiver of the message can decode it exactly as it was sent.
When running a project, it is important that the stakeholders are informed of any change in expectations. If the project managers do not communicate effectively, there could be a significant difference in expectations which will ultimately affect the final outcome.
Team Members Don’t Know What to Do
Poor communication does not just lead to problems among stakeholders; also members of the same team may be confused about what is expected of them. When communicating to members the team leader may fail to explicitly state what the role of team members is. In this case lack of proper communication can cause confusion and unnecessary delays. Issues with the project will only arise when a team member does not perform the task properly.
Timely Communication
Issues may also arise when the project manager does not communicate to stakeholders on time. The impact of certain critical elements of the project may be noted only when there is little time left. There may be last minute requests that cannot be fulfilled due to technicalities. The project manager not only needs to communicate on time but must also do so proactively.
Most projects fail due to poor communication. Stakeholders and team members need quality information in order to work effectively. To be successful you’ll need a well thought out communication strategy tailored to your project.