Good to talk

The way people communicate in project environments is constantly evolving as new technologies come on stream. But just how effective are these new methods of communication? Tim Lyons, APM People SIG member, analyses the results from the latest online Communications Survey.

If you Google percentage of projects that fail you will get about 10 million hits. Results are often specific to IT or construction, but a fair proportion claim to span all sectors. A straw poll of the first 20 or so yields a consensus that around 50 per cent of all projects fail to deliver their intended results (their agreed cost/time/scope). Of course this measure is probably pessimistic; after all these are mainly consultants with solutions to sell! The true value is probably lower, so for arguments sake lets reduce this by half and say as a ball-park figure, 25 per cent of projects fail.

Now Google why projects fail and you will get 27 million hits. Again lets halve that as there are some duplications and cross-references. So, 13 million individuals or consultancies, many backed up by research say they can list the factors that make projects fail. Project readers will already be familiar with many of these; they typically include:

• Requirements were inadequate or vaguely defined
• Users werent consulted about their needs or expectations werent managed
• Lack of (senior) management involvement/commitment
• Stakeholder conflicts 
• Bad decisions
• Ignoring project warning signs
• Hidden agendas compromising true progress
• Poor and ineffective communication

But hang on, 13 million people can tell you why projects fail, yet 25 per cent still manage to fail? Whats going on? Doesnt anybody listen to advice any more?

Most project managers know just one of these failure factors can bring a project to its knees in a hostile environment. But take a closer look at the list; one item on the list is itself a factor in all the others: the last one, poor communication. Whilst it would be wrong to suggest that this is the most critical factor, it would be reasonable to suggest that ineffective communication could catalyse or aggravate any of the other factors. The only real way to find out would be to study what happens in project communications.

(Above - Fig.1 - Summarised industry sectors responding)

The survey

In light of this, the APM People Special Interest Group (SIG) agreed to undertake a pilot study to find out how the project community was communicating and to what degree this was proving successful.

The results were revealing. Not only did they provide a snapshot of current communication strategies and their perceived effectiveness across a number of industry sectors (see Fig. 1), but importantly, a sense of where communication gaps in the project environment were most likely to be found. A small sample of the results is shown below:

• Regular team updates are used as a primary communication method in 87 per cent of environments and not surprisingly, 67 per cent voted this the best method.
• Newsletters are used in 40 per cent of environments, but only seven per cent consider them the best method.
• Paper and electronic memos are used in 26 per cent of environments (see Fig.2) but nobody thought these were effective.
• Seventy five per cent of project environments have a dedicated project office or are setting one up.

(Above - Fig.2 Technical methods for communicating project information)

A closer look at the data reveals an industry-wide reliance on numeric and graphical information, which may explain why intranets, dashboards and especially email are generally favoured. By contrast there was a strong indication that paper-based media were considered ineffective a wake-up call to the 25 per cent plus of organisations that still use newsletters and memos as their primary communications method.

In terms of interpersonal communication, team updates proved most popular. More formal company gatherings and information cascades were considered the least effective face-to-face methods. A reasonable interpretation is that people dont like broadcasts from top brass, preferring interactive structured meetings.

Most alarming, however, were the three headline statistics which revealed that although 63 per cent report that project communication has improved over time, the remaining 37 per cent feel it has not improved or has got worse. Similarly, while 65 per cent find it easy to initiate and complete a communication, 35 per cent find it labour-intensive or frustrating. Finally, when taken as an average across all sectors, 20 per cent report that they still work in silos with little or no open communications (even allowing for the defence sector where silo working would be expected for security reasons).

In other areas only five per cent of respondents mentioned any kind of communications plan, which is perhaps indicative of the lack of available information about how to set one up. For example, there is only passing mention of this in the APM Body of Knowledge and APM SIG factsheets, while the PMI BOK mentions Communications Frameworks, but again not in much depth.

More detailed guidance can be found in the scores of excellent books covering project communications, available through resources such as Amazon and the APM and PMI website publication sections. In addition any number of consultancies in the UK and across Europe would be able to advise on how to set up and run a Communications Plan, or how to embed it in your project management strategy.

But in truth, fixing those three headline problems will probably deliver most bangs per buck: take a long hard look at how you communicate; do you have processes and are they making it easier or harder? What would be some small manageable steps that will gradually improve communications, and shouldnt you have KPIs for these? How will you break down your silo walls? If you need some help, I know where you can find 13 million advisers!

• A full copy of the Communications Survey can be found at http://www.apm.org.uk/People/CommunicationsSurvey.asp
• Tim Lyons, MAPM, is managing director of Gestionnaire Ltd. He can be contacted at timlyons@gestionnaire.net.

*The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the APM People SIG.