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 What is Communication

Communication can be best defined as a two way process of exchanging information between
two entities.
So, if you think of your project as an entity, your project needs to communicate with other entities
in the organization, for instance, other project managers, senior management of the organization,
and any other stakeholder of the project. Similarly, these entities may also have to communicate
with the projects and it is a two way process. As can be seen on the slide, the direction of
communication between the project and external stakeholders is two way.

Project manager is responsible for ensuring proper communication to and from the project. In
fact, a project manager spends almost 90 percent of his or her time on communication. You can
now understand how important it is for a project manager to plan this activity well!

Communication Methods, Technologies, and Channels


Now, let us discuss the communication methods, technologies, and channels.

There are basically two ways to communicate. Either it can be done by written means or it can be
done verbally. Both, written as well as verbal communication can either be formal or informal.

I hope you know what are formal and informal. However, let me explain it to you. Formal is
communicating by following some basic rules, whereas informal means taking a casual approach.

So, with these two combinations, there are four different communication methods. They are:
formal written, formal verbal, informal written, and informal verbal.

The question here is which method is used when? Formal written method is used for project
management plans, project charter, and over long-distance communication. Formal verbal
method is used during presentations. Whereas, informal written method is applicable while
writing notes or emails; informal verbal, on the other hand, is applied during conversations. Let
us now discuss communication technology.

Communication technology basically means the different media used for communicating. As can
be seen on the screen few such technologies are listed, among which email, fax, and telephone
are few popular communication technologies.

Let’s understand the communication channel with the help of an image. Suppose there are 4
people in the team. How many unique channel of communication can exist between these 4
people?

Look at the picture, I have drawn 6 lines that show, who is talking to whom. So, six channels of
communication exist.
Now tell me, how many unique channels exist, if there are 10 people in the team?

It’s pretty simple to calculate. You can use the formula; N multiplied with N minus 1 and the
resulting sum divided by two. In this case, N equals to 10.

If this is put into the formula, we will get the result as 45.

So, 45 unique communication channels exist in a team of 10 people. Isn’t it difficult to manage
such large number of communication channels?

It is! That’s why, it’s really important to structure communication, otherwise everyone starts
communicating everything to everyone, and it can become a real chaos in the project.

Now that we are clear on communication methods, technologies, and channels; let us focus on
the basic communication model.

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