Shhh. Do you hear that? Me neither.

My life has gotten a lot quieter recently.

Did I become an empty nester?
No

Did noisy neighbors move away?
No

Did I start to lose my hearing?
No

So what happened?
The elections are over.

Mitt no longer calls.
Barack doesn’t write anymore.
Scott doesn’t drive over in his truck to visit.
Elizabeth doesn’t interrupt Revenge and appear unannounced on my TV.
It’s quiet.
And I like it.

This silence got me thinking about project communications. How much is too much, and how much is too little? Industry estimates suggest that project managers spend as much as 90% of their time communicating to stakeholders. That’s a lot of time. Is it necessary?

Considering the stakeholders who could be on your project (sponsor, business owner, steering committee, customers, team members, vendor(s), purchasing agent, legal counsel, staff of other impacted projects) and the amount of project information, it’s not hard to fathom the need.

Another communication statistic is that employees won’t believe a leader’s message until they’ve heard it seven times.

So do stakeholders get sick of hearing from you? If so, focus on your information distribution methods. If folks are ignoring you, important information may not flow back and forth. Talk to stakeholders about their communication preferences. If your sponsor wants brief updates highlighting issues and resolution plans, don’t send her weekly status reports full of verbose detail. Does your team prefer 30-minute weekly check-ins vs. 60-minute biweekly meetings? Try to accommodate.

And if you see Scott drive by, wave. Take a picture. I heard he might be selling his communication vehicle.