Measuring Communication Efficiency and Its Value

If you've been in the project management realm for any length of time, you'll quickly see that the whole point of project (or even program and portfolio) management is to deliver value. In fact, there's a significant number of people in the project/program/portfolio community who understand that such endeavors are investments; that there are gradations of success...because there are! One key thing about investments is that they continue to deliver value (hopefully) long after the project is complete.

That being the case, the efficiency with which project managers, teams, customers, and organizations (all stakeholders) are able to complete a project is critical. This is an obvious statement when we consider aspects such as activities and work to be done. More efficiency USUALLY means money saved. The same is true when it comes to effective communication. If organizations are able to better understand how efficiently communication is happening vertically, horizontally, and diagonally within their purview, the better chance they have to make improvements to allow for savings in money, time, and employee and customer retention.

Response Time Analysis

This metric concentrates on measuring the time taken to respond to varying types of communication which include requests for proposals or information, decision-making processes, and so on. It also includes analyzing communication response-time impacts to project timelines and critical milestones as well as identifying patterns in response times across different project management process groups and project phases. Finally, this metric evaluates the effect of communication tools and technologies has on response times. I find this last bit incredibly important as a consideration given the development and growth of the myriad communication mediums available.

Information Accuracy Assessment

Effectively, this metric evaluates the message aspect of the communication system. It focuses on the accuracy and precision of technical specifications and project requirements as well as assessing the accuracy of status updates and progress reports. As a child metric to the overall parent group, it also measures the frequency of rework specifically resulting from miscommunication.

Message Clarity

This metric stresses and measures the clarity of the project’s purpose and goals as they are delivered to the team members. It focuses on task comprehension, assigned responsibilities, and how well changes to the project are transmitted and received. Additionally, it examines how well and clear risk and mitigation strategies are communicated.

Channel Effectiveness

With this metric, we take a step back to a more macro level of the communication process. It helps us understand and assess the effectiveness of formal versus informal communication mediums and analyzing the suitability of those mediums for different process groups and project phases. It also evaluates the impact of different communication media (meetings, reports, digital dashboard workspaces, etc.) on project outcomes.

It's in this metric that I have found the most utility; especially from a senior project manager or senior leader position. It’s because, at these upper echelons during my time in the military, my job was to give a direction in which to travel based on guidance from on high. I was no longer a Subject Matter Expert in the intricacies of what my Airmen did (although I had a pretty good lay of the land as I was once in their position as a frontline worker). I knew what my leadership needed (the requirements) and what knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA’s) my team had or needed. I then worked with the frontline supervisors and managers (seasoned Non-Commissioned Officers) to align the capabilities with assigned resources to get cracking on our programs and projects.

It should be noted that while all of these metrics play a role in successfully measuring effective communication when completing a mission or project, each will have their own internal champions based on the role and level said champions hold on the team or in the organization. In fact, the weight of importance given to each metric could change for the same champion based on the status of a project or within a particular process group.

The Formula Breakthrough

All this being said, I’ve come up with a simple formula (after nearly a year of work) to evaluate the effectiveness of communication using weighted averages for each of the four metrics we just spoke about. It'll be discussed in my upcoming book and is called the Russell Communication Efficiency Index (RCEI). While not very creative in name, it’s easy to use at any point in a project and, over time, can help organizations see trends in communication effectiveness. Here it is:

RCEI = (w1*RT) + (w2*IA) + (w3*MC) + (w4*CE)

Here's a breakdown of the components:

1. Response Time (RT): Scored from 0 to 1, where 1 represents optimal response times.
2. Information Accuracy (IA): Scored from 0 to 1, where 1 represents perfect accuracy.
3. Message Clarity (MC): Scored from 0 to 1, where 1 represents perfect clarity.
4. Channel Effectiveness (CE): Scored from 0 to 1, where 1 represents optimal channel usage.

Each metric is assigned a weight (w1, w2, w3, w4) based on its relative importance to the organization’s project and should come to a total of 1.

An Example

To better illustrate how the equation works, let's take a look at the following.

A project’s sponsor, stakeholders, and project manager may conclude that a Response Time for a particular project phase is slightly above average so it gets a ‘0.65’ while the weighted importance of said metric for that phase is high given the time sensitive nature to meet its milestone. Therefore, the team decides to give it a weighted score of ‘0.4’. Using the appropriate portion of the RCEI, we see that this component has a total score of ‘0.26’.

Subsequently, the Information Accuracy component has a score of ‘0.92’ (because this is a very technical project with clear-cut specifications) with a weighted calculation of ‘0.2’. Here we get an overall component score of roughly ‘0.18’. Next, the Message Clarity score is ‘0.78’ with a weight of ‘0.3’ and that gives us an overall component score of roughly ‘0.23’. Finally, we have a Channel Effectiveness score of ‘0.88’ with a weighted score of ‘0.1’ which comes out to an overall score of about ‘0.09’.

When we add the total component scores, we get an RCEI of ‘0.76’. Now, depending on the interpretation scale applied by the organization and/or stakeholders, this RCEI can mean different things. Here’s a quick example scale:

RCEI:

-?????? Greater than or equal to 0.9, there’s excellent communication efficiency happening with little to no adjustment needed

-?????? Between 0.89 and 0.8, good communication efficiency exists with room for improvement in certain areas

-?????? Between 0.79 and 0.7, the communication efficiency is moderate with a good bit of room for healthy improvement

-?????? If the RCEI is 0.69 or lower, it means the communication efficiency is poor and needs a lot of work

It should go without saying that the weighted relative importance given to each metric should include input and buy-in from all relevant stakeholders and generally reflect the values of the organization. It should also be noted that such agreed-upon weights are mostly (if not completely) immutable after they’ve been set for a given project. The variable metrics here in the formula are the component scores.

This formula allows communication efficiency to be tracked over time and can be scaled to the program and even portfolio management level. In fact, it can be scaled down to the interpersonal level to allow supervisors to set expectations for each of their direct reports depending on how technical they want to get. Moreover, I encourage organizations to flip the script and help frontline workers use this formula as a component to gauge the communication efficiency they have with their boss….which can help identify communication ‘blind spots’ for both parties.

#communicationefficiency #projectcommunication #projectmanagement #leadership

Stephen Devaux Jan Willem Tromp J. Kendall Lott, PMP Diana Petersen April K. Mills Lisa Sambat Alissa Bookwalter Demi Anderson