Communication is planned work. It comes out of your work plan, and it follows the intensity of work.
A touchpoint earns a slot for one of 3 reasons: Work intensity, a coordination milestone, or a client decision point.
Every conversation produces a unique output, or it’s overhead.
Three triggers. Every touchpoint on your calendar traces back to one of them. Trigger 1 sets how many sessions a week carries. Triggers 2 and 3 set which week they land in.
What to do
Seven best practices. These are the moves that hold a project together.
What to do
Read the work plan before you set any meeting. Every dependency that crosses a discipline is a point where the project has to talk. Put a working session at the handoff.
Name the routing before you name the meetings. Decide who coordinates with whom first. Where the party count is high, consider sequencing communication rather than trying to have one big meeting.
Ask for a client decision earlier than you need it, by however long that client takes to answer. Count backward from the week the dependent work starts.
Reset the cadence at every phase boundary. Density follows the work, so it shouldn’t remain fixed across a phase change unless it’s evaluated and determined to be accurate.
Write the one target output on the invitation before you send it. If you can’t name the output, don’t schedule the conversation.
Give direction that names the work, the owner, and what done looks like. All 3 parts are already in your work plan. Communicate these data to the recipients at each touchpoint.
Send the client a choice on the day the fact is known, with 2 options, a recommendation, and the date you need the answer.
What to watch out for
Five risks. Each one is a signal you can see this week, and what it’s costing you.
What to watch out for
The same meeting count in your slowest and busiest month.
A decision requested on the date you need it. It has already slipped by however long your client takes to answer.
Coordination happening by email between scheduled sessions. The work asked for a working session and your calendar didn’t supply one.
Review time in the schedule but not on anyone’s calendar.
A session that ends in agreement with nothing written down. If it’s not documented it’s not done.
What to avoid
What to avoid
Setting the cadence at kickoff and leaving it untouched.
Answering a rising coordination load by adding meetings alone.
Treating volume of communication as evidence of alignment. Closed decisions are the evidence.
Giving context and calling it direction. If nothing lands in a task list, you didn’t give direction.
“Looks fine, keep going.” That’s how unreviewed work reaches a client with the firm’s name on the cover.
Keeping a decision in your memory instead of the log.
Density follows the work
A recurring calendar draws a flat line. The work draws a curve. The gap between them is the coordination nobody scheduled.
Oakhaven Design Development, 13 weeks, effort peaking in Week 9. Set your density by zone. Few sessions at the front and go deep on them, the most through the middle where the most disciplines overlap, then fewer at the close as the work shifts into review.Size the load before you set the cadence. Add 4 consultants to a team of 6 and your channel count goes from 15 to 45. That’s 30 new conversations for 4 new people. Control the routing of communication to keep the party count manageable.
Ask before you need the answer
Oakhaven dispatch system selection. The console room package starts in Week 11, so Week 11 is the decide by date. Comparable municipal decisions in the Grace record came back in 11, 13 and 15 working days, so plan on the longest: 3 whole weeks. The request goes on the calendar at Week 8. The decide by date never goes on the calendar alone.
Best practices for effective project communication
Five conversations carry a design phase. Each one is defined by the single thing it has to produce.
Name the output before the conversation starts. It changes the invitation you write, the 40 minutes you run, and what you walk out holding.
Conversation
Best practice
The test
Giving direction
Read it off the work breakdown. Name the work, the owner, and what done looks like.
Could they start Monday without asking you a second question?
Monitoring progress
Ask what’s finished. Set the answer beside your Earned Value Plan for that week and say the difference out loud.
Is there a number sitting beside the planned number?
Evaluating work
Render one of 3 outcomes (on track, off track, stop), in writing, inside the protected review week.
Is the outcome recorded against the deliverable?
Client communication
Bring 2 options, a recommendation, and the date you need the answer. Send it the day you know.
Was a decision made, or scheduled with a date?
Maintaining updates
Same day, same place, same format, short. Four lines is enough.
Could someone who wasn’t in the room read it without asking?
Bring the client a choice
When the client needs to decide something to keep work moving, bring them a choice.
A choice = 2 options + a recommendation + the date you need the answer
Send it the day you know
Not on the next scheduled report. That delay gets spent building a solution your client was never asked to choose between.
Land it ahead of any public session
At least 5 working days before a board, a council or a committee your client sits in front of.
Give 2 options and a recommendation
One option is a decision you already made for them. Three or more is a study.
Close it or date it
If your client can’t decide in the room, leave with the date they will.
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