Every project is a communications project

Company projects tend to fall into explicit categories: an 'IT' project, a 'process improvement' project, a 'marketing' project.

We're a communications company, so obviously our perspective is a bit biased. Nonetheless, I respectfully submit to you that every project is a communications project.

Your IT project relies on communications for success. The business needs that create the project have to be effectively communicated, or the project won't work. The project team has to communicate with each other, or they won't get things done. The new system needs to be communicated to those who are supposed to use it, or they won't.

Likewise for process improvement and marketing projects.

Every project has three phases:

1. Effective communication, which leads to a clear understanding of needs and motivations,
2. An appropriate response or responses, and
3. Effective communication of those responses.

In the movie Kenny, about a guy who runs a porta-potty company, the eponymous main character wonders why the toilet people aren't the first ones who get called for every event. Really, he says, it's the one thing that everybody does, every day. The same could be said for communications.

At your next project initiation meeting, ask yourself, "How is this project a communications project?" You may be surprised at the answer.