Some Additional Remarks Concerning the Subject Communications Management
The Communication Knowledge includes different aspects:
- Sender-receiver models including feedback loops and barriers to communicate
- Choice of media: when one has to write or speak formally or informally
- Writing style
- Presentation techniques including body language and visual aids
- Meeting management techniques including the sense of agendas and conflict management
The sender-receiver model says, that the sender has to translate an idea into a language which can be understood by others (the act of encoding). The result is the message which is conveyed by a medium - partially disturbed by noise - and which is finally decoded by the receiver (comp. PMBOK3, p. 224). Inbetween this model on can identify some other aspects:
- Active Listening is the active verification of the receiver whether he has understood correctly by asking
- Effective Listening imeans hearing supported by observing the sender and his "visial and vocal clues"
- Feedback is the method to mirror the received message to the sender for getting an approvement
- Nonverbal exchange of information "[...] can be up to 55% of a communication"
- Para lingual are submessages generated by the voice and the articulation
(comp. CROSSWIND7, p. 394)
And the following Communication Types have to be distinguished:
- formal written "[...] should be used for legal communication and project documents [...] or when distance or extreme complexiziy are involved"
- formal verbal "[...] should be used in official situations, presentation, and other primarily one-directional communication"
- informal verbal normally is used in "bi-directional communication" like meetings and talkings
- informal written "[...] should be used for nonlegal documents, documentations and notes, which are not used in formal context"
(comp. CROSSWIND7, p. 390)