PMGT5872 · People and Communications
The Importance of Communication in Projects
Week 1 of University of Sydney PMGT5872 People and Communications establishes why communication is a core project-management knowledge area — project managers spend a large share of their time communicating with the team and stakeholders — and links it to project success and the PMI "power skills". It also introduces the reflective-practitioner mindset (Kolb, Argyris & Schon, the 5Rs) that runs through the whole unit and underpins the one-minute video and the individual reflective summary. This chapter frames the vocabulary every later assessment task draws on.
What this chapter covers
- 01Project Communications Management as a PMBOK knowledge area (planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, control of information)
- 02Project managers spend a large proportion of their time communicating with team and stakeholders
- 03Stakeholders: anyone with an interest in, or affected by, the outcome (team, sponsor, clients, suppliers, community, media, government)
- 04PMI "power skills" (communication, problem-solving, collaborative leadership, strategic thinking) and the Talent Triangle
- 05Bloom's taxonomy and the postgraduate expectation to analyse, evaluate and create
- 06Reflective practice (Dewey): we learn from reflecting on experience, not from experience alone
- 07Reflective models: Kolb's learning cycle, Takeuchi & Nonaka, Argyris & Schon
- 08The 5Rs of reflection (Bain et al., 2002): Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, Reconstructing
Applied: turning a project moment into a reflective-summary paragraph with the 5Rs
- +1Reporting: state what happened, objectively and briefly. "I facilitated the first stand-up and, in my eagerness, spoke over a quieter team member, who then did not contribute again."
- +1Responding: note your reaction and feelings. "I felt effective in the moment but uneasy afterwards when I noticed their silence."
- +1Relating: connect it to prior experience and course concepts. "This mirrors the assertive-versus-aggressive distinction and the value of other-orientation and active listening covered in the unit."
- +1Reasoning: explain why it matters, using theory. "Dominating airtime suppresses participation and psychological safety, undermining the very team communication a project manager is meant to build."
- +1Reconstructing: state what you will do differently. "Next time I will invite the quieter member in by name and pause for responses, treating facilitation as enabling others rather than performing."
Key terms
- Project Communications Management
- The PMBOK-aligned knowledge area covering the timely planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, control and monitoring of project information.
- Stakeholder
- Anyone with an interest in, or affected by, the project outcome: the team, sponsor, clients and customers, suppliers and contractors, the wider community, media and government.
- Power skills
- PMI's interpersonal skills that most drive project success — communication, problem-solving, collaborative leadership and strategic thinking — one leg of the PMI Talent Triangle.
- Reflective practice
- Deliberately learning from experience through structured reflection (Dewey: we learn from reflecting on experience). Models include Kolb's cycle and Argyris & Schon.
- 5Rs of reflection
- Bain et al.'s (2002) staged reflection framework: Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, Reconstructing — used to structure the reflective summary.
- Bloom's taxonomy
- A hierarchy of thinking (remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create); postgraduate work is expected at the analyse/evaluate/create levels.
The Importance of Communication in Projects FAQ
Why does communication get its own knowledge area in project management?
Because a project manager spends a large share of their time communicating with the team and stakeholders, and most project failures trace back to communication rather than technical problems. Treating it as a managed process — planning who needs what information, when and how — is what turns ad-hoc messaging into reliable project delivery, which is why PMBOK lists it as a knowledge area and PMI ranks communication first among its power skills.
What is reflective practice and why does this unit keep returning to it?
Reflective practice means learning from experience by examining it deliberately rather than just living through it (Dewey's point that we learn from reflecting on experience). The unit uses it because two assessment tasks — the one-minute video and the 1,000-word reflective summary — require you to reflect on your own communication and teamwork using frameworks like the 5Rs and Kolb's cycle, so it is introduced early and threaded through every week.
Can AI help me with this chapter of PMGT5872?
Yes, as a study aid. Sia can explain the difference between describing and reflecting, walk you through the 5Rs on your own project moment, and check whether a draft reaches the Reasoning and Reconstructing levels. It explains the method and checks your reasoning; it does not write your reflective summary or video script for you, and University of Sydney academic-integrity rules apply.
Do I need to keep a reflective journal from Week 1?
It is not formally required, but it is the single most useful habit for this unit. The reflective tasks land in Weeks 4 and 11, and reconstructing genuine moments from memory at that point is hard and produces thin, generic writing. A few honest lines per week gives you real material to reflect on with the 5Rs when the tasks come due.
Exam move
Anchor Week 1 on two ideas: communication is a managed knowledge area, and reflection is how you will be assessed on your own practice. Learn the 5Rs (Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, Reconstructing) well enough to use them, and start a weekly reflective log immediately so the later video and summary have real material. Be able to name stakeholders for a project you know and explain, at the postgraduate analyse/evaluate level, why communication drives success. Confirm task dates and word counts for your session on Canvas and the unit outline.
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