We’ve been talking at work about improving internal communications. Some of the issues that people are describing as internal comms issues, aren’t, in my view.

In a triumph of serendipity, I’ve come across the following in my Project Management MBA reading. It isn’t profound, but I’m posting it anyway, as I’m sure I’m going to want to quote it in the coming weeks.

Discourage glib categorization [sic]. There is little that cannot be put down to ‘communications problems’ in complex projects, but categorizing something this way is only a starting point to the diagnosis, not a finishing point. It is easy to put down as a communications problem, for example, two people making different assumptions about who has responsibility for a particular action. A proper diagnosis would examine how different assumptions arise and why they persist even when they lead to errors.

Busby, J S, ‘An assessment of postproject reviews’, Project Management Journal, 30(3), September 1999.

Reprinted in Meredith, J R and Mantel, S J, Project Management, Wiley, Hoboken NJ, seventh edition, 2010