Effective communication and technological tools to engage stakeholders of a project

Effective communication is key for achieving success in any project. This is a shared process between the project manager, the work team and stakeholders. Effective project communication creates an environment that allows for the discussion of issues and celebrating gains. Hence, why writing a communication plan is an important element to keep the project team and stakeholders engaged and supportive of the project. This communication plan needs to be clear and transparent.

Highly effective communicators can encourage a team in order to meet the goals plan for a project.  According to PMI, 80 % of project managers with effective communication meet original goals, versus only 52 percent at their minimally effective counterparts. Also, a rate of 71% versus 37% deliver projects on time. Likewise, effective communicators meet goals for a project within budget with a rate 76% versus 48%. 

Effective communication serves as the very bedrock of business and facilitates the involvement of a team. In other words, it can sway public opinion, give teams a sense of purpose, persuade executives to increase funding, and boost project success rates. However, communication is a real challenge in projects as you have to consider the stakeholder involved, the form of communication, frequency and in some cases, location such as it is the case of global projects.

Nowadays, in-person communication isn’t as required given there are many tools that are readily available in facilitating more efficient communication. The advent of modern technology has certainly been a great enabler in creating centralized, accessible storage repositories to support and enhance project communication and collaboration. Emails Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or iCloud allows project managers to control access and invite collaborators to key documentation. Nominated collaborators can access, edit, comment, and approve documents in shared files, allowing for real-time access.

Basecamp is another useful online tool that readily enables effective communication and has a number of useful plugins that help users visualize the schedule and related tasks. From a project management perspective, it provides a project manager greater control over the monitoring and review of the activities that have been scheduled.

In short, effective communication enables project manager to meet and control critical aspects such as budget, quality and milestones. However, this is an activity that it does not need to be tedious as technology facilitates this process as those can allow member of a project team to access information on real time and have the latest updates as well as working simultaneously.