You're coordinating services with multiple vendors. How do you ensure seamless communication?

In my experience the cornerstone of any communication system is to carefully establish and communicate the owner's requirements. The level in which these requirements are well defined and understood correlates to the subsequent strategies' potential to be effective. Communicating the owner's motivation and desired outcome for the project provides valuable context that the administrators and vendors can use to solve problems along the way and add value in ways you may not be able to predict. These requirements can then be paired with metrics for success that guide prospective designs, inform alternatives analysis, and add rigor to the instructions and contracts that vendors will agree to and perform under.

Service becomes seamless when there is proper communication +Communication helps to understand each others +Inform well in advance to plan +Communication align the direction

Technology has quickly evolved to produce an incredible number of project management software options and features. However, getting ALL participants to utilize these platforms is constrained by each person's bandwidth and natural resistance to change and complexity. Project administrators do well to first analyze the project and team structure to determine the specific need(s) for a collaboration platform and absolute minimum features necessary to meet that need. Then administrators should evaluate potential solutions and select the one(s) that they perceive to require the least amount effort to adopt and manage. I have found that a targeted tool set with a well communicated purpose streamlines adoption and promotes buy-in from the team.

Every heard anyone say "I wish I had more meetings"? More often than not, folks that complain find the time spent in meetings is wasted when they could be actually getting things done. Consider crafting a strong update agenda and establishing a procedure that asks team members to post their updates ahead of the meeting. You may find that a meeting isn't necessary at all or that a more targeted group and agenda is more appropriate. This way, the time in the meeting can be utilized to formulate strategies to overcome challenges, not to simply communicate the status of each item. This format also helps limit interpersonal and social challenges that can make problems harder to explore and solve in a larger group.

Ever have someone offer to collaborate with you and then tell you exactly what they want you to do and even how they want you to do it? Contrast that situation with one in which your collaborator tells you why they want to partner with you, what the goal of the collaboration is and then asks how you would like to be involved. The second example activates the motivation of the collaborator to meet and exceed your expectations. Project managers are often perfectionists that would rather do it themselves or ask you to do things exactly like they would. This is experienced by collaborators as a lack of trust which limits their buy-in to your goal and the amount of energy and effort they are willing to invest.