Communication and knowledge transfer

0:00Sara: Welcome to Project Management Exam Prep.

0:02This episode is about communication and knowledge transfer.

0:06Every project management exam tests it, because many problems start with a message

0:11that never arrived.

0:13Leo: You will learn how the three bodies frame it, how a message travels,

0:18how to plan who gets what, and how to pass on knowledge.

0:22We finish with a drill, so keep a pen ready.

0:25Sara: Let us start with the three lenses. What does IPMA® say?

0:29Leo: IPMA®, the International Project Management Association, sets out its standard in

0:35the Individual Competence Baseline, the ICB4.

0:39Two elements meet here. Personal communication is the skill: clear messages,

0:45listening, and checking understanding. Organisation and information is the system:

0:51roles, documents, reports and information flows inside the project.

0:56Sara: And PMI®?

0:57Leo: PMI®, the Project Management Institute, publishes the PMBOK® Guide,

1:02its guide to the project management body of knowledge.

1:05The eighth edition places communications in its stakeholders performance domain,

1:10and project knowledge in its governance domain.

1:14The outline of PMI®'s Project Management Professional exam, the PMP®,

1:18has two tasks here: plan and manage communication, and help ensure knowledge transfer.

1:25Sara: And APM?

1:27Leo: APM, the Association for Project Management, publishes the APM Body of Knowledge.

1:32Its communication section covers the message, the medium and the plan.

1:37The syllabus of APM's Project Management Qualification, the PMQ,

1:42puts communication inside its objective on stakeholder engagement.

1:46It also asks why knowledge transfer matters at handover.

1:50Sara: Where do the words differ?

1:52Leo: In three places. First, the plan. The ICB4 calls it an information plan.

1:59PMI® calls it a communications management plan.

2:03APM calls it a communication plan.

2:05Sara: Second?

2:07Leo: What it means to arrive. The ICB4 separates information, what you send,

2:12from the message, what the receiver takes from it.

2:15PMI® separates acknowledging a message from understanding it.

2:19APM separates the message from its medium.

2:23Sara: And third?

2:25Leo: Learning. PMI® manages project knowledge in a lessons learned register.

2:30APM speaks of knowledge management. The ICB4 asks you to exchange lessons with other

2:36projects.

2:38Sara: What is the core, whichever exam you take?

2:42Leo: Three ideas. One: communication is complete only when the meaning arrives.

2:46So you fit the message to the receiver, and you check what they understood.

2:52When you receive, listen actively, as Carl Rogers and Richard Farson described it

2:56in nineteen fifty-seven. Hear the facts and the feeling, say back what you heard,

3:01and ask open questions. That shows you understood, not that you agree.

3:06Sara: Two?

3:08Leo: Information is a system you design. Each role gets what it needs to decide or act,

3:14and no more. Keep one master copy of each document, with versions and access rights.

3:20Log key decisions. And plan the flows: up to the sponsor, down to the teams,

3:26and across to suppliers.

3:27Sara: Does that change in agile work?

3:30Leo: The rhythm and the medium do. A linear project relies more on plans and reports,

3:36on set dates. In iterative work, the team talks daily and shows working results

3:41at every review. A visible board shows the status to anyone.

3:46The PMBOK® Guide calls such a board an information radiator.

3:51Sara: And three?

3:52Leo: Knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be written down, like a checklist.

3:57Tacit knowledge lives in people, as skill and judgement.

4:01The philosopher Michael Polanyi wrote: "we can know more than we can tell." So tacit

4:07knowledge moves by working side by side: pairing, shadowing and mentoring.

4:11And collect lessons learned throughout the project, not only at the end.

4:17Sara: Is there a model behind this? Both model sheets are free in the description.

4:22Leo: The classic one is the sender and receiver model.

4:25Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver described it in nineteen forty-nine:

4:29a signal travels through a channel, and noise can distort it.

4:34In nineteen fifty-four, Wilbur Schramm applied it to people.

4:37He added feedback, and showed that each side reads a message through its own experience.

4:43Sara: How does our loop run?

4:46Leo: The sender has a meaning in mind. She encodes it: words, tone and pictures that

4:51fit this receiver. It travels through a channel: a meeting, a call or a report.

4:57The receiver decodes it, through their own knowledge, language and mood.

5:02Now the receiver has a meaning, and it may not be the sender's.

5:05So feedback closes the loop: the receiver says back what they understood.

5:11Sara: And the noise?

5:12Leo: It enters at every step: jargon, stress, a bad line, a second language.

5:19So after anything important, ask a question that shows understanding.

5:24‘What will you tell your team?’ works better than ‘Is that clear?’

5:28Sara: And the second model?

5:30Leo: The communication plan. Each line answers five questions: what information,

5:36for whom and why, when, how, and who owns it.

5:41Build it from the stakeholder analysis and the project organisation.

5:46Sara: How do I choose the how?

5:48Leo: The PMBOK® Guide names three methods. Push: you send it, like a report.

5:54It arrives, but it may not be read. Pull: people fetch it from a shared site when

5:59they need it, which suits reference material.

6:03Interactive: a live exchange, like a meeting, for decisions, conflict and bad news.

6:09APM calls real face-to-face contact the richest medium.

6:14Sara: Why write a plan at all?

6:16Leo: Because the lines multiply. Any two people share one line of communication.

6:22Each of n people can talk to n minus one others.

6:26That counts every line twice. So multiply n by n minus one, and halve the result.

6:33Five people have ten lines. Ten people have forty-five.

6:38So a plan cannot control every line. It fixes the few routes that must work.

6:44Sara: How does this change between Mid-level and Senior?

6:48Leo: First, the two levels. They are this series' own labels.

6:52Mid-level means leading moderately complex projects, the level of IPMA® Level C and

6:58PMI®'s PMP® exam. Senior means leading complex projects and people,

7:04the level of IPMA® Level B and of APM's chartered status, Chartered Project Professional.

7:12At Mid-level, you make information flow on your project.

7:16Take Parking Permits Online, a city project that moves resident parking permits

7:20online in eight months. The project manager, Anna, keeps a one-page plan.

7:26She takes bad news to the steering group in person, and the details follow in writing.

7:31Sara: And at Senior level?

7:33Leo: You design information and learning across organisations.

7:37Take One City Account, a thirty-month city project that brings fourteen online services

7:43under one login, led by Anna some years later.

7:47Anna sets up one document system, with access rights advised by the data protection

7:52officer. Reports roll up from each team to the steering board.

7:57Each new group of services starts with the lessons of the last.

8:01Sara: Now the drill. A city team of seven is moving parking permits online.

8:06In month three, a supplier team of five joins.

8:09Soon the supplier builds a screen from old permit rules: they changed in a meeting,

8:14and nobody wrote it down. And the only parking officer who knows the unusual permit

8:18cases leaves in six weeks. How many lines of communication are there,

8:23and what do you do?

8:24Leo: Pause and write your answer. You have forty-five seconds.

9:12Sara: First, the numbers.

9:14Leo: For seven people, multiply by six: forty-two.

9:18Half of that is twenty-one lines. For twelve, multiply by eleven:

9:23one hundred and thirty-two. Half of that is sixty-six.

9:28A shortcut: each newcomer adds one line to each person already there.

9:34The eighth adds seven. The ninth adds eight, and so on.

9:39So the five newcomers add forty-five lines.

9:42Twenty-one plus forty-five gives sixty-six again.

9:47Sara: And then?

9:48Leo: Fix the route, not the people. Keep the rules in one versioned master file that

9:53the supplier can open. Log each decision the same day, and open the weekly call

9:58with the new ones. For the officer, start now.

10:02She walks the business analyst through real cases, and the analyst writes them as

10:07rules and test cases. She checks the result, so tacit knowledge becomes explicit.

10:13Sara: What lifts that to Senior?

10:15Leo: A Senior answer treats it as risk and governance.

10:19The only expert leaving is a risk, so it gets an owner.

10:23Rank her knowledge: the cases that could stop renewals come first.

10:28Agree her time with her new manager. Agree with the supplier which channel counts

10:32as an instruction. And pass both lessons to the city's next projects.

10:38Sara: How do the exams ask this?

10:41Leo: IPMA®'s written exam asks for open answers; at Level B it may be oral.

10:46IPMA®'s certification also includes an interview, where assessors ask about your

10:51own projects, so note one message that did not arrive.

10:56The PMP® exam uses scenarios, and questions built on a case study or a chart.

11:02APM's PMQ asks for short written answers, such as the benefits of a communication

11:07plan.

11:08Sara: Let us recap.

11:10Leo: One. Communication is complete only when the meaning arrives.

11:14Check it by listening and asking.

11:17Sara: Two. The loop: encode, channel, decode, feedback, and noise at every step.

11:24Leo: Three. The plan: what, for whom and why, when, how, and who owns it.

11:32Push, pull or interactive.

11:35Sara: Four. Lines grow faster than people: multiply n by n minus one,

11:41then halve it.

11:43Leo: And five. Tacit knowledge moves by working side by side.

11:48Collect lessons as you go, and use them.

11:51Sara: The two model sheets and the study handout are linked in the description.

11:56Next time: stakeholders and engagement.