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You are ready for the next meeting or to extend your current meeting if the

stakeholder wants more detail.

The communication plan should be reviewed with your sponsor. If your project
requires communication to executive team members, the sponsor can help you by
identifying what information the group needs and how and when communication will
take place.

Factors That Influence Communications

It’s important to keep the lines of communication open with team members so that
you’re attuned to issues or conflicts that may be brewing. In an ideal world, this is easy
to accomplish if your teams are small in number and all the team members have office
space right outside your door. You’d know each of them by name and have the

opportunity for informal chats to help you all get to know each other better. If that is
not possible, make certain to go the extra mile in building relationships with and
among your team members so they feel comfortable relating issues and information to
you and others on the team.

In today’s global world, it’s more likely you have team members in various
geographical locations. That means several things for you as the project manager. First,
you’ll have to be aware of time zone issues when scheduling meetings so that some

team members are not required to be up in the middle of the night. Due dates may
have to be adjusted in some cases to account for the various time zones.
Communication preferences and language barriers also come into play. You may have
team members who speak different languages. If so, you’ll have to determine the best
method for communication. In my experience, it’s worked well to use two or three
forms of communication, especially for critical information, so that there’s less chance
for misunderstanding.

Cultural differences can have an impact on teams whether they are collocated or
dispersed. If you are used to working in the United States, for example, you know that
the culture tends to value accomplishments and individualism. U.S. citizens tend to be
informal and call each other by their first names, even if they’ve just met. In some
European countries, people tend to be more formal, using surnames instead of first
names in a business setting, even when they know each other well. Their
communication style is also more formal than in the United States, and although they

tend to value individualism, they also value history, hierarchy, and loyalty. In the
Japanese culture, most people consider themselves part of a group, not an individual.
Japanese people value hard work and success, as most of us do. You should take the
time to research the cultural background of your team members and be aware of the
customs and practices that will help them succeed and help you in making them feel
like part of the team.

Personal Preferences

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