Communications

- Pat the PM feels like sometimes it takes saying something 20 times before it's heard. And Pat leverages Bailey the BA to help communicate some of these messages, too. The key is communicating when the listener is receptive, and that's hard to pinpoint. So it's a good strategy many use to communicate things many times in many different ways and also using others to help communicate the same message. This is true on projects, as well, as Pat and Bailey collaborate to bring key messages to stakeholders and user groups impacted by the project. And this communication can be simply tactical or quite strategic, as well. This requires a lot of communication between Pat and Bailey themselves. They communicate things like a shared understanding of what requirements and intent, and what's the highest priorities the team is working on, the timelines, and also a lot of detailed conversations. Pat and Bailey collaborate to look at ensuring a consistent message is being communicated to each person or group. They also listen intently to stakeholders, watch other's body language, and watch their own when communicating and sharing our learnings with one another. This allows them to connect better with stakeholders, build trust, and create better relationships with the team and stakeholders. I resonate with this. I often find myself sharing with the PM the various discussions that came up and the key points I'm planning to have. Then she can check in with the same stakeholder and seek to understand if the message was successful. Often, there are opportunities to create another communication, in maybe a different manner with different words, to try again to communicate the same thing. This is a critical part of a PM and BA collaboration. Besides working with stakeholders, PMs and BAs communicate a lot with each other. It's important to ensure as much transparency in our work as possible to make this communication go smoothly. Transparency in things like, what am I working on, what are my priorities today, who I plan to interact with, and the key messages that we need to collaborate on. Communicating together to help get project activities completed and influence others is what it's all about. You can choose to communicate tactically or strategically. Strategic communication is all about thinking one step ahead with what others need and working together on key messages that make all the difference.