After all, the potential for technical difficulties typically increases with the size of a project. Managers of projects that involve many hundreds of team members spend much of their time both planning and trouble-shooting myriad technical and logistical details. As a result, he says, project leaders would be wise to focus more on customizing their communication style to meet the needs of the team, especially when faced with a massive implementation effort. Martinez has been involved in systems development for almost 20 years, the last 12 of which he has managed large-scale information technology projects. Senior Writer Carol Hildebrand spoke with him recently about how IS managers can rein in communication risks.
Nothing ever gets simpler as it gets bigger.
But when it comes to communicating, there's a particularly steep complexity curve. As the size of a project grows, there is a nonlinear increase in the complexity of project communication. You can't just vaguely communicate facts to a small set of team members and expect the facts to naturally disseminate among the rest of the group. You have to learn how to communicate quite explicitly. As a group increases in size, you have a whole slew of management challenges.