I looked at my calendar for the week and saw that half the days were booked with back-to-back meetings. I also looked at all the red items in my Inbox, my blinking "messages waiting" light on my phone, my unread text messages. I then peeked at my to-do list and sighed heavily. The first thought that crossed my mind -- When am I going to get all my work done?! And then I remembered, as a project manager, communication is our work.
Did you know that approximately 75% of your time as a project manager is spent communicating? Our job as a project manager is to make sure that information gets to the people who need it, when they need it, and how they need it. We do that through meetings, emails, and phone calls. And we communicate to everyone on our project -- the sponsor, stakeholders, steering committee, end-users, team members, peers, and our manager. It is our job to collect information from people, package into a format that is easily digested by others, and then send that information out to those who need it. And to do that in a timely fashion.
The Communication Plan is one of the project management templates that I find incredibly useful. It's a document that is created at the start of the project. It outlines the audiences, events, and mechansims by which you'll communicate throughout the project. Think of it as your "Communication To Do List". Refer to your Communication Plan throughout the project to make certain that you haven't forgotten to share with any of your stakeholders. Or to refresh your memory on who should be invited to the next quarterly steering committee meeting.
Look forward to the communication aspects of your project manager role! Interacting with people through various forms of communication is one of the things that makes this job enjoyable. So, happy communicating! And thanks for spending part of your busy day reading this article!
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