Essay on Communication in Project Management
Planning is extremely important for the successful project management, but planning alone is not enough for the successful completion of the project. In fact, planning contributes to the clear and concise identification of key steps which have to be implemented in the course of the fulfillment of the project. However, the plan cannot be rigid because not a single project manager or project team can create the perfect plan which takes into consideration changes in the business environment, customer behavior, and other external as well as internal factors that may affect the implementation of the project. Therefore, the effective and successful project management should involve not only the accurate execution of the plan, but also the development of the healthy organizational culture, positive interpersonal relations and flexibility of the project team to be able to respond to external or internal changes that may affect the implementation of the plan.
In such a context, I would disagree with the manager, who insists that a good project manager will just make sure everything goes according to the plan. In fact, such attitude to the project management and to the work of a project manager is superficial. First of all, the project manager is responsible for the successful completion of the project but not the plan (Royse, 2006). Obviously, there are no perfect plans. Therefore, any plan may have drawbacks or weak points which manifest themselves in the course of the implementation of the plan. Therefore, the project manager should be able to monitor the implementation of the plan but, at the same time, he/she should be able to respond immediately to any change in the business environment, or in the project team, or the organization, or whatever. In other words, the project manager should able not only monitor the implementation of the plan but also introduce changes respectively to the goals of the project.
In this regard, the project manager should also be able to develop positive interpersonal relations and effective communication with the project team and other stakeholders. The effective communication is essential for the successful implementation of the project and the manager cannot monitor how the plan is implemented and respond to challenges introducing changes in the plan (Schein, 1999). Instead, a good project manager should become a leader, who united his/her subordinates to reach the goals of the project. Otherwise, the project team would be ineffective because team members would not be interested and motivated to work better and to reach the goals of the project. In addition, the manager will be unable to understand what changes the plan and the project needs, if he/she fails to communicate effectively with his/her subordinates. In fact, monitoring the plan implementation may involve the one-sided communication, when the manager just traces problems and makes orders to employees to tackle these problems (Royse, 2006). Obviously, such management style is absolutely ineffective and is likely to provoke conflicts and misunderstanding in the project team, while the effective communication will improve interpersonal relations and create healthy organizational culture in the project team and organization at large.
Thus, I would definitely disagree with the manager and I would try to persuade them to agree with changes when they occur. I would explain that changes are essential because ignorance of challenges and failures of certain points of the plan or their ineffectiveness will lead to the failure of the entire project.
