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Conversations in Project Management
Project Management, HR Management, Project CommunicationsSource - Article by Bob Andrew
Project management is generally a formal environment. Regular meetings are held at scheduled times, stylised minutes must be produced and frequent reports, using approved templates, are widely circulated. Does this environment represent the core organising competency of the project? The answer surely must be ‘No’, if the role of conversation is not included.
Conversation is indispensible for the successful accomplishment of activities between people , especially for the coordination of work and for learning. It is also the foundation of the social network that is critical for the successful achievement of project objectives and goals. Conversation drives shared meaning and collective power and wisdom among project team members.
Conversations allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other and are unlike presentations, which are popular in project management, where one person talks to a group of people. For a successful conversation, the participants must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between the participants or things that they know. For this to happen, those engaging in conversation must find a topic to which all participants relate.
No every aspect of a project is visible or appears in the project reports. Dialogue, through conversation, is one example. And yet, this is where most of the work gets done. It’s the place where objectives get set, where feedback is given and where problems are resolved. Socially, it’s where praise is received, support offered and where relationships are maintained or restored.
Yet, somehow, this self-evident truth often gets lost in the operational and organisational mist of managing large and complex projects. Processes and structures, which are more visible and more easily to be controlled, receive far more attention than the frequency and quality of conversations.
In a very real sense, a project is the sum of a thousand different everyday conversations. The quality of these conversations can make or break the project.
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