The Global Communications Challenge

	Project Management Knowledge Management Knowledge Management

by Andy Jordan

October 24, 2011

I believe that effective communication is one of the most important skills that a PM can have. I’ve spent a big part of my career trying to convince people of the benefits of becoming a skilled communicator, of the importance of adjusting your style to your audience and of seeking cues from your audience as to how well your communication is working so that you can adjust accordingly.

When we add a global perspective into the picture, things can get a lot more complicated. The physical distance can be a big part of that--as can time, language, culture, etc. In this article, I want to look at how communication needs to adjust on a global project in order to remain effective.

Language
Let’s start with one of the biggest areas where we can make mistakes--language. The stereotypical English-speaking tourist abroad springs to mind immediately (assuming that by speaking slowly and loudly someone who doesn’t speak English will be able to understand them!).

Those of us who are native English speakers are tremendously fortunate. In many parts of the World, English is considered to be the language of business and we can get by without having to wonder what the German term for “work breakdown structure” is, or how to say “contingency plan” in Mandarin.

If we have team members who are working in a second language, then we have to consider the challenges that they have to overcome:

• No matter how good their English skills are, project management has its own unique set of terms and words that aren’t part of everyday language
• If the predominant language in the team is English, then conversations containing mostly English speakers will likely be moving fairly quickly with people interrupting and talking over one another, making it harder for non-native speakers to follow
• There may be different accents to deal with, and also use of regional words or phrases
• Geographical separation removes many of the non-verbal aspects of communication (even if video conferencing/webcams are used), making it harder to understand the overall meaning

On top of that of curse, we also expect them to be valuable contributors to the actual project-related challenges that need to be dealt with.

So how does a PM deal with these situations? The most important thing is to understand the specific challenges that your non-native English speakers are facing.