The other day, a young engineering student asked for advice on what they should be good at. Now, my career has been simulation, so I wanted to say, “understand the simulation process and your modeling tools.” But the truth is, the most important factor for the success of almost every project we have done here at PADT for simulation and product development has been project management.
Being a good student, they then asked what is the biggest piece of advice I would give about project management. My initial thoughts were around establishing a good process, hiring and enabling good project managers, and pay attention to the dollars. Those are all true, but the more I thought about it, the more one word came to mind.
Communication
Without good communication, all the other aspects of project management or the engineering tasks being managed would not save a project. In fact, we came this conclusion when we did reviews on all the projects we did in a very busy year. There was room for improvement in every single one. And sat was the most common area that needed improving?
Communication
It’s a simple word, but what does it really mean? For us, communication means transferring information between people. For engineering project management communication, we refine it a bit more and say that this subset of communication as: communicating useful information to all of the project stakeholders in a timely, complete, and documented manner.
10 Changes We Made to Improve our Project Management Communication
Just sending information back and forth between people is not enough. Efficient and effective project management communication requires some structure and some discipline. Here are 9 suggestions that we have made part of our process here at PADT:
1: Identify the project stakeholders and what information they need
The stakeholder list is usually larger than the list of people working on the project. Make a list that is updated regularly. Most importantly, the list needs to include what type of information each stakeholder needs: budget/schedule, technical issues, manpower, supply chain, etc….
2: Pick a single channel for each type of communication
“Did you send that on Teams or email? Or is it in Assana?” There are few things worse than having multiple ways to share information. Pick one that everyone has access to, learn it, and use it. When in doubt, use email. You may use a different channel with a customer than with the internal team.
3: Set a regular cadence for communication and stick with it
Pick a schedule and stick with it. We do customer updates every week. And even when the communication is “on hold, no change” we share that. The same is true for internal and external teams. We use standups, emails, and updates on a regular schedule to make sure information is always flowing. And, more importantly, everyone knows on the team that they will need to communicate what they are doing, what challenges they face, and what their status is.
4: Use the project’s work breakdown structure (WBS) to refer to tasks and roles
A WBS is more than a tool to lay out a project and keep track of tasks and their interdependencies. It also establishes a common name for the work being done that is shared across the team. If the WBS has a task called “Map Hardware Mapping GUI” don’t call it the “mapping UI” in your communications. Use the name in the WBS for tasks, processes, and items in all your interactions.
5: Always write it down
Talking is a great way to figure things out. But document, document, document. Not only do we often forget things, but we often hear things differently. When communicating on a project, it’s very important to summarize what was said verbally in a discussion.
6: Update on project management details
Project management is different from the tasks in a project. The primary goal of communication around a project is to share information about the project itself. But you also need to share information about how the project is doing, how the management is going. The stakeholders need to know about schedule, budget, resources, and more.
7: Use smart subject lines
Don’t send emails with a subject of “Update.” That is useless. Project management communications should include the project name or ID and the topic of the message in the subject line. One way to think about it is, you should be able to find that message or email by searching the subject line only.
8: Establish clear, agreed-upon objectives, and refer back to them as a touchstone
At the start of the project, everyone agrees on the “why.” But over time, people tend to forget what the objectives are, and you get caught up in the details. Establish clear objectives and relate your communications about the project to those objectives.
9: Communicate bad news frankly and as early as possible
No one likes delivering bad news. The biggest mistake we made early on was taking too long to deliver bad news to partners, customers, and vendors. It never made things better. It often made them worse. Just get it out there, as early as possible, and deal with it.
10: Overcommunicate
If there is one suggestion everyone should take to heart, it is the power of overcommunication. Too much information is, at worst, annoying and a bit of extra work for everyone. But undercommunication can tank a project. When in doubt, share information.
Make Good Project Management Communication Part of Your Culture
We hope you have found these suggestions for better engineering project management communication useful. Most of them are common sense, but as we learn in project management, you need to identify them, assign them, and make sure they get done. Your organization and your customers may be different – the type of information, frequency of delivery, and channel of communication may be different. But some improvements and try them out, get feedback from the stakeholders, and continuously iterate on getting better at project management communication. And, over time, it will become part of your project management culture.
And speaking of communicating, I would be a poor communicator if I didn’t point out that the best way to get a feel for PADT’s project management and project management communication skills is to work with us on one of your projects. If you are involved in the design, test, or manufacturing of physical products, our simulation and product development teams are here to help. Reach out, let’s… well… communicate about it.
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