Paul Naybour
5 barriers to communications are:
- Work environment.
- People’s attitudes and emotional state.
- Time zone and geography.
- Distractions and other priorities.
- Cultures and languages.
Find Out Why
Effective Communication is Key to Project Success
1. The environment in which the communication takes place is one of the barriers to communication.
Work environment such as noise and temperature might affect communications in certain circumstances. The project manager, therefore, must ensure that the work environment is comfortable to everyone and that it will not be a barrier to effective communication. For example, the project manager might ensure that all personal conversations in the team take place outside the working area to avoid the noise distracting other team members. The same applies to group work-related conversations where such conversations should take place in a meeting room and not around the work desks where others might be impacted by the noise.
2. People’s attitudes and emotional state
This is another barrier to communication that you can learn more about on one of our APM PMQ project management courses. When people are under pressure because of personal problems or work-related issues their receptiveness to messages may be adversely affected, and they are less likely to be influenced. The project manager must understand the person who will receive the information, show emotional intelligence and empathise with their needs to overcome this barrier to communication.
3. Time zone and geography
This is a barrier to communication when the work spreads around the world. For example in an international company the work and the services provided can be done in different countries by different specialists to meet clients’ needs. The time zone and the geographical barriers in this situation can be overcome by organising a conference call at a time when everybody can attend.
4. Distractions and other priorities
This is another one of the barriers to communication. People in the organisation might have other priorities and therefore too much project communication can become distracting. The project manager must ensure that the responsibilities are well distributed between the team members and the communication time is well organised to avoid such distraction.
5. Culture and language
Another barrier to communication as different cultures have different ways of doing things. Language also can be a barrier when dealing with multiple nationalities with different languages. The project manager must ensure that communications are delivered in simple language to avoid any misunderstanding.
Read More Sample Answers for APM Exam Questions:
Describe 4 main components of a
Quality Management Process
Explain 5 benefits of a
Project Lifecycle
Read our in-depth Guide To Project Management Qualifications for information about the range of professional qualifications that provide a progressive structure for project managers to boost your career prospects.
A good answer will lots of detail and good examples
Thanks
I think we all know that good communication is essential for all projects – without truly effective communication you will just be adding barriers to project success and creating problems when there should be none. So it is, of course, important to recognise the barriers to communication and work to avoid or resolve those just as much as to put in place an effective project communication plan. Nobody is arguing with that but it’s the reality of just how you implement effective communication on a project and just how you recognise and alleviate the barriers to project communication. That is the difficult issue to overcome and time and time again we see projects that have been less than successful because of fundamental communication issues.
And these are often projects where the value of good communications is well-understood but somehow the implementation goes astray.
Take a small project, for example, that I’ve been working on recently using the Asana app. Previously projects were run in a quite ad-hoc manner with the main repository of data a series of email trails and documents in DropBox. Now, with Asana, everyone can see the latest status and documents all in one place – we can comment and like updates where we don’t necessarily need to get fully involved. But, unfortunately, there is the problem of data overload – almost, as in the article listed above, as if too much communication is slowing our small project down.
All the good intentions to improve communication have added to our workload, without delivering any real benefit to the project. So, yes there are certainly barriers to communication to be overcome but on some small projects avoid trying to fix a communication problem that doesn’t exist.
ys ur right♥️
Very useful information and good insights – thank you
I agree Anna that sometimes attempts to improve communication channels on small projects simply add to the workload of the project team without delivering any real benefit.
But on larger or more complex projects it is vital to find a solution that enables you to communicate effectively, otherwise the project is destined to fail. You’re right that it isn’t always easy even with the wide choice of tools we have at our displosal and it may take some trial and error, but once the right tools and processes have been found they will deliver benefits to the project (but there’s no guaratee they won’t increase your workload)…
Another really helpful example answer for me with plenty of detail.
Am in Kenya and have found this very useful to me in understanding the barriers in communication.
Thanks for publishing it.
I am in Pakistani and I found this post very useful in understanding the different barriers to communication. Thank you for writing and publishing it.
Perfect explanation
Thanks for the feedback.
Okay sir
This was very helpful,thanks so much.
Thanks for information, really helped me
Absolutely good explanation
Exactly
Ok I found this a very useful post. I find that communications problems occur in a lot of projects. Understanding how to overcome these barriers to communications is very useful for my projects. Thank you so much for sharing these ideas.
I found this a very useful post, i understand that communication barrires occurs at any stage of communication and know how to overcome them thanks
Thank you for your good clear elaboration
This is well sumerized explanation thanks for helping many people to understand it
I agree with the information above in which without removing the barriers in the communication process then many people will be left without the information they need.
It’s so easy Shalom to get the communication process wrong when managing a project but hopefully these tips will help you overcome some of the most common problems encountered on project communication.
Thanks for thos elaboration its well said
Yes
It’s evident that you have a genuine passion for connecting with your readers.
Your words have a way of evoking emotions and sparking introspection.