Professional communications

Now days, the Indian economy is getting better after the big bad recession times. It is good for everyone to get into business. Everything goes fine in many small and medium size organizations – but I feel adding little more values in good communication makes most of the work flow, and performance even better. I would like to share few suggestions here about building a good communication for small and medium size business clients’ management.

1. A simple communication plan should contain following information

a. Stakeholder Information – I prefer to have names, email IDs and phone numbers

b. The objectives, schedules and mode of communication – what information will be communicated in what schedules. For example: Weekly Status Calls, Status Reports, monthly reports, Issues and risks discussions, etc.

2. Use your minutes of meeting document

a. Have a clear agenda – this saves times in meetings

b. Summary of Discussions – important comments from stakeholders

c. Action Items and Status monitoring

d. Have an action Item log for continuous follow ups and results

3. Weekly Status Report

a. I prefer to have content from Project plan here.

b. What is completed, what is re-scheduled and what is not completed / not started should be informed. Not started and not completed should be rescheduled and communicated.

c. Achieved milestones should be mentioned

d. Issues, Risks and concerns should be notified

e. Important decisions made by stakeholders should be added in every week status report

4. Customer Calls – Conference calls, Mobile Calls

a. I suggest to take calls as much as possible from inside closed room – this gives chances to listen clear and white board important points

b. Listen carefully – most of client communications will not be clear enough – sometimes, language, sometimes their way of presentations and sometimes because of their understanding of situations. [This is based on my personal experience J]

c. Talk loud and clear – Don’t talk fast – be slow, and if required get confirmations for his understanding

d. Record your call – if possible.

e. Circulate Minutes of Meeting as early as possible after the call

Note: Re-post from SiliconIndia Blog