Using Project Management Software to Translate Between PMs and Political Sponsors

Communication is one of the biggest challenges in project management.

Its bad enough when a project manager has trouble communicating with the team that will be doing the project. But it can be down-right dangerous for a manager when there is a lack of clear communication with the project sponsor the person who navigated corporate politics to get the project approved.

The problem stems from not understanding what each person is looking for or unrealistically expecting the other party to speak your language. This can be aggravated by the project manager’s insistence on using only the project management tools which suite their needs, regardless of whether the project management solutions generate the kind of information the political sponsors of the project are looking for.

Sometimes is takes an artist to bridge the communication gap. But for those without an artistic flair, good online project management software has the flexibility to act almost like translation software and provide both project managers and sponsors with the data they need(like the Yamagato translation software used by Hiro Nakamura on his blog).

A project manager can use online project management software to get the information they need to have visibility and control of a project. And if they want to continue to use a personal favorite project management application like Microsoft Project, for example, most good online project management applications can import and export MS Project files or make it easy to talk to other project management tools.

But a good online project management application can also generate the kind of information political project sponsors require, bridging the communication gap. This can include cross-project, portfolio or executive dashboard views on budgets, resource utilization and overall project health that the sponsor can use to manage the expectations of their bosses making it easier to maintain political and budgetary support for the project.

          

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Project Management Software, Workplace, Project Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.