![\"client-space\"](\"https:\/\/treize.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/espace-client-1024x498.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIn many spheres of life, communication is essential for success, and the success of a project is no exception. There are many stakeholders in a project, and it is important that information is shared appropriately with everyone to ensure that no important details are lost along the way. <\/p>\n
In our case, projects last several months, and the various stakeholders are not necessarily involved at every stage, which highlights the importance of establishing good communication from the start and leaving a trail of the work performed to help a stakeholder reintegrate into the project at any time.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of a project, it is crucial to determine the best communication channels to use, whether it be email, telephone, video conferencing, a collaborative communication platform like Slack, or a mix of several.<\/p>\n
I recommend choosing a maximum of three communication channels, with the third being reserved for emergencies. For example, you could establish email as the primary channel and video conferencing for presentations, while the telephone remains an option for emergencies. Beyond three channels, information risks being lost from one platform to another, which is obviously not the desired effect here. <\/p>\n
If, as at TREIZE, you work with clients external to the company, you can obviously choose different communication channels for them than for your internal team. The important thing is to specify them from the start and ensure that all stakeholders are comfortable with the selected tools! On our end, we use the introductory meeting to define with our clients what our communication channels will be. We take advantage of this meeting to identify our clients’ expectations regarding management (e.g., do they expect to receive responses within 30 minutes of receiving an email or is a 24-hour delay acceptable?) and to present our own. Our expectations are written down in black and white, which allows us all to be on the same page. From experience, this helps enormously. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the context of a project lasting several months, it is important to schedule times to discuss project progress, share updates, and identify as well as resolve any potential issues. Ensure that the frequency of these touchpoints is regular and that the meeting structure remains more or less the same to maximize their effectiveness. <\/p>\n
For example, at TREIZE, when we reach the development phase, a weekly meeting is scheduled with our clients. During this “touchpoint,” we review certain discussion points raised by each of the stakeholders, then we establish clear actions to be completed before the next meeting. Some weeks, the touchpoint is very short, while other weeks, it is longer. This is not a problem; the important thing is not to lose that consistency! <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A project management tool (task manager) is essential not only for staying organized but also for remaining informed throughout a project. At our agency, this collaborative tool allows us to create tasks, assign responsibility to a person, share the necessary context and documents, and track project progress in detail. It is a work tool that allows all parties involved to stay organized and informed. <\/p>\n
At TREIZE, our task manager is ClickUp. I won’t go into detail here about how we use the tool, but if you’re interested, I invite you to consult the excellent article by my colleague Val\u00e9rie: Choosing a management tool: what are the must-haves? Here, I will instead focus on the features related to communication within the project. <\/p>\n
At TREIZE, there is a very simple rule: if we want a resource to accomplish something, a task must be created in ClickUp with all the necessary context. This allows us to keep a record of what has been done in the project. Within a task, we can discuss by tagging each other directly to add context, for example: “@Laurence, I spent more time on this task because (…)”, or “@Laurence, I need you to ask the client for x and y to be able to complete this task”. When you tag someone this way in a task, a notification is sent to the person concerned, allowing for a quick response. <\/p>\n
We also use ClickUp to share information with our clients. When a project starts, we create what we have dubbed the client space. This is a small “public” environment, shareable via a link, in which we insert all essential information, documents, and links throughout the project. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Transparency is one of the most important aspects of how we manage our projects at TREIZE. Internally, to promote transparency, project updates are provided every Friday by the project manager. We indicate what is in progress, the next steps, and if we have any blockers or issues on the project in question. This ensures that everyone has access to the same level of information. We also have a public Slack channel for each project that is updated daily by team members. In this way, even if the current stage does not directly concern all team members, everyone remains informed of the progress. <\/p>\n
With our clients, it is during the weekly touchpoint mentioned earlier that we discuss these elements. It is important for us to maintain a high level of transparency with our clients to encourage exchanges and to make them as accountable as possible for the elements they must provide to us. <\/p>\n
To conclude, keep in mind that communication is the key to a project’s success, both with your internal teams and with your clients, and it is worth equipping yourself with the right tools to facilitate communication throughout a project.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In many spheres of life, communication is essential for success, and the success of a project is no exception. There are many stakeholders in a project, and it is important that information is shared appropriately with everyone to ensure that no important details are lost along the way. In our case, projects last several months, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"class_list":["post-7481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treize.pro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}