A web design agency is three weeks into building a new online shop for a client. The designer believes the client approved the colour scheme in a meeting. The developer is working from an older version of the brief he found in his email. The account manager has promised the client a launch date nobody else has agreed to. And the client has quietly changed their mind about which products should appear first, telling only one person, in a WhatsApp voice note.
Nobody is lazy or incompetent. Everyone is working hard, but they’re working towards slightly different versions of the same project. By the time the gaps surface, the launch slips by a month and goodwill on both sides has worn thin.
Most project chaos looks like this. It rarely comes from a single dramatic failure; it builds from small mismatches in what different people know, believe and expect. Research from the world’s largest project management body suggests that poor communication is behind a remarkable share of projects that fall short.
One Like insight: Projects rarely fail in one big moment. They drift, one misunderstanding at a time.
What poor communication costs
The Project Management Institute (PMI) runs an annual global survey of project professionals, called Pulse of the Profession. In 2013, it published an in-depth report focused on communication, called The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications.
PMI’s survey that year estimated that, for every US$1 billion spent on projects, US$135 million was at risk because projects weren’t meeting their goals. The communications report found that 56 percent (US$75 million of that US$135 million) was at risk because of ineffective communication. Around two in five projects didn’t meet their original goals, and in about half of those, poor communication was a contributing factor.
The difference between organisations was striking. Those rated as highly effective communicators delivered projects on time far more often than minimally effective ones, 71% compared with 37%, and within budget 76% of the time compared with 48%. They were also much more likely to meet their original goals.
The data comes from surveys of project professionals, mostly in larger organisations, and is now over a decade old. Correlation doesn’t prove that better communication alone causes success; well-run organisations tend to do many things well. But the pattern matches the experience of almost anyone who has worked on a project that drifted: the problem was rarely the work itself, and often the shared understanding of it.
Practices that bring clarity
PMI’s report recommended closing the gap around why a project matters and tailoring communication to different people. For small teams, that translates into a handful of simple habits.
Keep one source of truth. One shared place, such as a project board, a shared document or a simple spreadsheet, holds the current brief, decisions, tasks and dates. If it isn’t there, it isn’t agreed. Old emails and voice notes don’t count.
Explain the why, not just the what. Everyone involved should be able to say in a sentence what the project is for and what success looks like. As we explored in Could Your Team Name Your Top Three Priorities?, shared understanding of goals is often weaker than leaders assume.
Log decisions and changes. Keep a short running list: what was decided, by whom and when. When a client changes their mind, it goes on the list, and everyone sees it.
Hold short, regular check-ins. A brief weekly review of what’s done, what’s next and what’s blocked catches drift early, as explored in The Twenty-Minute Habit That Keeps Plans on Track.
Make status visible. A simple red, amber or green for each part of the project, updated weekly, tells everyone at a glance where attention is needed.
Tailor the message. Clients need progress and decisions; team members need tasks and details; owners need risks and money. One update rarely fits all.
[Infographic placement] Where project money goes at risk. A stacked bar: US$1 billion spent on projects → US$135 million at risk → US$75 million (56%) linked to ineffective communication. Beside it, two bars comparing highly effective and minimally effective communicators: on time 71% vs 37%; within budget 76% vs 48%. Caption: PMI Pulse of the Profession, 2013.
Starting this week
Pick your most important current project and run a quick clarity check. Ask each person involved, including the client if appropriate, to write down in one line what the project is for, the next key date and the biggest open question. Compare the answers. Any differences are where drift is already happening. Then set up a single shared source of truth and a decision log, and agree a fifteen-minute weekly check-in.
A few questions can help:
- Is there one place where everyone can see the current brief, decisions and dates?
- Could everyone on the project explain what it’s for and what success looks like?
- When a client or colleague changes something, how does everyone else find out?
- How quickly would we notice if part of the project started to slip?
Which brings us back to the web design agency and its four slightly different versions of the same project. The team didn’t need to work harder. They needed one shared brief, a decision log that captured the client’s voice note, and a short weekly check-in where the mismatched launch date would have surfaced in minutes. Clarity, in the end, is mostly a matter of making sure everyone is looking at the same picture.
Sources
- Project Management Institute, The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications, Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report, May 2013.
