Communication Technology

General technique · See it on the map

Runnable here

Choosing the medium a message travels over, based on urgency, privacy, audience size, and how much tone matters.

When to use it

Choosing, for a specific message, which physical or digital channel to use — distinct from communication methods (the traffic pattern: push, pull, interactive), which can each be carried over more than one technology.

When to avoid it

Defaulting to whichever tool is open on your screen rather than the one that fits the message — a sensitive conversation over chat because it was faster to type than to call loses the tone and nonverbal signal that made the difference. Also avoid a heavier or more formal technology than the message and audience actually need.

Steps

1. Assess the message's urgency, sensitivity, and how much it depends on tone or visual cues.
2. Check what the audience can actually access — a video call assumes bandwidth and availability a field crew may not have.
3. Pick the technology that matches: voice or video for anything sensitive or ambiguous, written for anything that needs a durable record, a shared document for anything collaborative and evolving.
4. Confirm the audience actually has access to the chosen technology before relying on it for something time-critical.

What it produces

• A stated channel for each planned communication, matched to its nature.

Common pitfalls

• Delivering a sensitive message over a low-bandwidth channel (chat, email) to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, and losing the tone that would have prevented a misunderstanding.
• Assuming universal access to a technology (video conferencing, a specific app) that part of the audience can't actually reach.
• Using a written channel for something that needed to be discussed, not just announced.

Worked example

Rather than emailing the two-week conduit delay to the client, the PM calls the sponsor directly — the news needs tone and room for questions a written note can't carry — then follows up in writing to make the revised date and recovery plan a durable record.

Source

• PMBOK-6 §10.1.2.3

Where it comes from: this technique is named by the PMBOK Guide, 6th edition.