Who is doing what, why, how, and (until) when? Clarifying tasks, giving mutual updates, staying in touch, exchanging thoughts on challenges, feeling the mood – these elements are key to successful projects, and regular meetings can help to facilitate them all. After the kick-off, one “jour fixe” per month (at the start of the project, it could also be more often) can be a good thing to start with. A short agenda, shared with participants beforehand, and a clearly defined timeframe are the minimum requirements for effective meetings. This also applies to telephone conferences!

During such meetings, chairing and time keeping can be rotating tasks, so that everyone gets the opportunity to freely engage in the discussion at one point or another. In international projects, regular telephone conferences of a core group (each month) or partner meetings (every six months) show very positive effects on the overall project performance. Highlight the uniting aspects of project work, so that all partners can join in with their particular point of view.

It is no secret: Coffee corners, water tanks, and smoking areas are hideouts with a high flow of information, and they are often the birthplaces of great ideas, too. But don’t worry, you do not have to develop an addiction to coffee, beer, and cigarettes. You can simply create and provide spaces for an informal social exchange. A joint lunch break, a short walk after lunch or a nice cup of tea in the morning will do the trick. At international meetings, an excursion is an easy way to provide such a space, and, at the same time, you can learn more about the context your partner operates in!

A shared task / activity without a direct connection to your project may highlight unexpected qualities in your colleagues, and it could also contribute to good team work. However, as a prerequisite, all colleagues have to join in voluntarily. There are many different settings – and special team building exercises are not a “must”. The creation of spaces for social interaction as laid out above can be a good alternative for projects with limited resources.

A shared space for data storage used by all project members is worth its bytes in gold! However, different projects often use different system, and in projects with partners from around the globe, file sharing can become a tiring exercise. It does help if the project management team offers and continuously uses one system. Many organizations put a strict limit on attachment sizes and offer cloud-based sharing systems instead. Keep an eye on data protection requirements! For European projects, a European server is a good place to start. If confidentiality requirements allow for it, easy access can be achieved by using one shared password for read only / download access.

Public relation work can be one-way or interactive:
2.1.1 One-way PR: provision of information
Recipients are informed about your project topics and results via leaflets and newspaper articles, in TV reports and in videos, but they cannot interact with you and are not invited to provide their feedback.
2.1.2 Interactive PR
People often want more than just be flooded with pieces of information. They want to comment, to be visible, and to get into touch with those leading the discussion. A social media approach is the best way to cater to these needs. But there are also ways to get into a dialogue with “reluctant web users”.

The highest form of art in external project communication is the active involvement of people in participatory processes (e.g. citizen forums or stakeholder workshops with consultations). These approaches are useful if you need support for and wide-ranging acceptance of your project, or if you need “swarm intelligence”, or if you want to include other bits of your stakeholders’ knowledge. However, it is most vital to completely think those processes through: What do you want to do with the results? What kind of outcome do you want? Who do you want to involve? Experience shows that participatory processes are often only planned half-heartedly. This does not only use up much of the project’s positive potential, it often can also create frustration among both stakeholders and project partners, thus even having a negative impact. This is why our core services are related to active involvement. Upcoming blog posts will address them once in a while.

Conferences and networking meetings are good formats to combine one-way communication (presentations and posters) with interaction (Q&A, discussions, speed dating). However, the main focus of these types of events still is on the provision of information, and less on interaction.