Internal Communication For Your Project

Ok, your company got a new project. This is something big, exciting, yet terrifying. Let’s say that you are about 25 people involved in this project, starting from the seller guy who sold the project itself to the one who is going to deliver this or to install this at the customer site. How to manage your internal communication? How to get the messages across the entire organization and be successful in the project?

7 basic communications steps for your project success:

Celebrate:  Start the project with a positive and inspiring communication. Let people know that this is a great achievement of all the team members. Remind them that this is very important for the company, not only in the economic terms, but explain what this represents: this will help opening business opportunities in different markets areas, this helps the company to differentiate from the competitor, this helps to build reputation or to strengthen the position that company has. Especially, this will help your team members to learn more, to learn something new. 

Plan a project meeting: A first meeting with the people involved in the project is essential to talk about the goals and the project itself. Clarify the short terms and long terms goals of this project. Talk about the project clearly and share as much information as you have about it. Do we have everything we need? Do we need more information from the customer? How are we going to get this project running? Which resources do we have and which resources do we need? Who will be in charge of the processes? When do we need to get things done? How are we going to monitor the project development and how are we going to evaluate the result?

Follow-up: Ok, let’s assume that some days or even couple of weeks have passed since the first meeting. Project is running, isn’t it? Check the project situation regularly. Are you facing challenges? What are we doing to fix the issues? Who is taking care of this? What is the schedule to solve the problem? Answer all the questions with the people involved in the project. Communicate!

Remember the memo: Write down what you all agreed and share it after the meeting with the people involved including those who were not present in the meeting. The memo (meeting summary) is a strong communication tool, you can just send this by email. If you have team members who are not reading emails regularly (e.g. workers in the factory area), print the memo, and put it on the board (or in a visible place). Yes, boards are old school, but those work as an internal communication tool, too.

Face-to-Face communication: There is nothing like F2F communication. Go and talk to the people involved in your project. Ask, get information, share information and confirm things. Don’t take things for granted. Dont make your own assumptions. Ask again if you have doubts. If the F2F communication is not possible, e.g. your team members are in different countries, call. Use the phone call  for the same communication purposes as the F2F communication: ask, get information, share information and confirm things. Use email after your phone call. You know, sometimes it is hard to communicate on the phone due to bad lines, background noise, language barriers, etc.

Define schedules and mark on the calendars: make the project schedule visible to everyone and update this regularly. Use, for example, a calendar to mark the deadlines and to adjust reminder alarms. Remember to mark the follow-up meetings in advance.

Organize smarter meetings: Select smaller groups for your meetings. Too many people in the same room can be distracting and challenging. Do you really need everyone there? Select main people and agreed on a short meeting. Before going to the short meeting, clarify your goals, what do you want to get from it? Check the proper schedule (considering other countries time differences, lunch times, etc.). Send the purpose of the meeting as well as the information related to your project well in advance. Information is essential for good communication. If your team members read the information in advance they supposed to be prepared for the meeting.

Monitor, evaluate and develop: No only by the end of the project, but also during the entire process. Register the information related to the project, for example, in a “project book”. Collect meeting memos, process evaluation and feedback from internal and external audiences. Use this to learn, not to complain. Develop based on the information that you received, and again, communicate! What we can do better next time?

Finally, remember there are always surprises when managing projects. Communication is an essential part when surprises appear. The internal communication is important to keep your team moving and your project running. We all are going to face challenges during the project, and the excitement and the boost that we got at the beginning might decrease when facing those obstacles. Use communication to keep the good spirit.