Building working relationships and rapport with the project stakeholder group involves being able to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively. Treating all members of the project team equally without prejudice is a necessity as all members are valuable contributors to a successful project delivery. Without good communication the project will suffer and any miscommunication or ambiguity in communications can lead to distress, misunderstanding and ultimately key project tasks and phases being delivered incorrectly and late, which is not what a Project Manager is trying to achieve. Please note some guidelines around good communication and soft skills below.

• Be clear and concise in all communications.
• Do not speak too loud, too low or mumble.
• Be coherent and make sure the language used makes sense.
• Use the right level of technical and non-technical language dependent on the intended audience.
• In meetings be open, and do not use closed body language as this can be disrespectful and give the wrong impression.
• Do not speak down to any member of the project team and treat every member equally no matter what level they are at.
• Obviously if senior or executive level colleagues need urgency in response to issues, then by all means provide the information promptly, but do balance this by weighting how important the information is and by not letting it effect other important project deliverables.
• For email communication make sure emails are not too long.
• Remember when reading an email a persons focus can drift very quickly so the key message needs to be delivered in the first 20 seconds of reading it.
• Be direct, polite and firm in communications, colleagues are not your friends and you are there to manage the project to completion.
• Do not be passive aggressive in any communications whether verbal or non verbal including written.
• Do not be intimated or be bullied by anyone who believes they are senior to you.
• Stay neutral in any communications between colleagues and make the right decision for the project when needed.
• During your project delivery journey you will invariably work for a software provider (vendor) or/ and customer (client) and make sure to tailor and tweak communications accordingly between both parties.
• You could also be project managing internal projects between different business units and markets and again be careful to understand cultural and linguistic differences when communicating and tailor / adapt as needed.
• Be careful to avoid items or requirement communications getting “Lost in Translation”. By this I mean differing parties can interpret communications in different ways whether the language spoken is common or not.
• If a call needs to be used to back up an email then use this mode of communication as well.
• Minutes and actions can help here and then be distributed and agreed by all stakeholders.
• Remember you are there to manage a project as best you can and roadblocks such as difficult personalities and non productive / non helpful colleagues will arise – deal with these issues professionally, stay calm, focused on the project deliverable at hand and take control.
• Remember as a project manager you will be responsible for chairing and leading calls and meetings.
• Stay quiet and listen when appropriate but do interject and direct and manage calls when they are not staying to the agreed agenda and script.
• By using good communication skills and techniques you will make the job of building key working relationships with stakeholders easier and more importantly it will help aid a successful project delivery.
• Being confident is not a prerequisite for managing projects but it does help.
• Remember as you start off on your project management journey watching and mimicking other good project managers communication skills can help.
• But with experience comes knowledge, power and better communication skills.
• There is no need to be overly forceful, belligerent or aggressive when communicating with project team members, this will create a bad working environment.
• Stay calm, be confident in your communication and gradually build the respect of your project team as you demonstrate your project management skills but most importantly that you are a competent, clear & coherent communicator👍.