Project management: the people skills that make coordination possible
A schedule can be accurate and a project still drift. What is known about communication, coordination and stakeholder relationships?
Teamwork quality
Martin Hoegl and Hans Georg Gemuenden (2001, Organization Science) study 145 development teams and link communication, coordination, balanced contribution, mutual support, effort and cohesion with innovative-project success. The design is observational: it establishes associations, not certain causality.
Looking beyond the team
Deborah Ancona and David Caldwell (1992, Administrative Science Quarterly) show that external team activities — securing resources, coordinating and representing the project — relate differently to performance. Not all outward communication is equally useful.
What methods do not solve
A task board cannot resolve disputed priorities, hidden dependencies or ambiguous promises to a stakeholder. Tools make work visible; people skills make trade-offs possible. (our executive and employee training programmes)
Useful behaviours
Restating a decision, naming the owner of a dependency and raising risk early are observable. Their effect depends on context, but they are stronger learning targets than a vague call to communicate better.
A practical check in Lugano
At each project review, record one dependency, its owner and the next decision date. After four weeks, count dependencies that remained implicit until delay; this indicator directly connects communication and execution. To go further: explore the Project Management training in Lugano in the canton of Ticino, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Project Management in Lugano
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