Where’s your weekly message?

It’s Friday and when managing a project or programme, it’s the day I would normally write my “Weekly Message” to the team and other internal stakeholders. Or Wednesday or Thursday depending on the country.

In addition to the day to day communication with the team, status meetings, etc, I’ve found that an informal email covering the following has tremendous impact:

1. Project / programme status overview
2. Risks and issues (addressed and new)
3. Team member birthdays, holidays, etc
4. Looming tasks and milestones
5. Congratulations on individual and team achievements
6. Strong appreciation for the team’s work
7. Advice on communication
8. Motivational quotes
9. Other topical and relevant subjects

Written quite casually but with great sincerity, it was almost like my weekly blog.

Don’t be one of those managers who spend far less time showing appreciation than they do showing disappointment to their team. PRINCE2, PMP, MSP, etc is the theory of management. Communication is the human element which involves personal qualities such as emotional intelligence. On that favourite subject of mine, Patrick Mayfield published a great piece on emotional intelligence last month. 

If you take a few minutes each day to build your weekly message, when it comes to the end of the week, you simply fine tune it, send it out and enjoy the background effect of some real positive impact on your team. It’s also an excellent informal style of regular communication to senior internal stakeholders. Written well, this is any manager’s opportunity to create some spin.