Course 06 — Communication and Working Relationships

Project participants hold different knowledge, interests, and responsibilities. Their contributions must become a common understanding that supports coordinated action.

Good communication makes evidence, disagreement, decisions, and obligations clear. It also gives people a practical way to correct that understanding.

This course teaches communication, persuasion, negotiation, and supervision within a human team. Each participant remains responsible for the work and decisions assigned to them.

Series · Northbank case · Glossary · References

Prerequisites and outcomes

Complete Courses 01 to 05. Bring your decision memorandum from Course 05.

After this course, you can:

• Establish shared understanding through explanation and listening.
• Identify stakeholder interests and decision rights.
• Explain a recommendation without overstating its grounds.
• Handle disagreement and route unresolved concerns.
• Assign work with clear inputs, outputs, and support.

Use Northbank Packets A and B. Do not use later events as evidence of what participants already knew.

Lesson 1 — Establish a shared picture

People can use the same words and mean different things. “Approved” might concern scope, expenditure, a drawing, or technical suitability.

Start by naming the activity and the decision under discussion. Explain the terms that change its meaning.

Ask participants what they understand and what they need. Their answers may reveal an omitted operating condition or a misunderstood boundary.

Listening requires more than waiting to speak. Identify the speaker's concern before proposing a solution.

Use this sequence:

1. State your understanding of the situation.
2. Ask the other person to explain their concern.
3. Restate the concern in concrete terms.
4. Invite correction.
5. Identify the decision or information now needed.

Check understanding through consequences. Ask what the participant expects to happen after the proposed decision.

An acknowledgment proves that a message was received. It may leave important differences in interpretation unresolved.

Select the communication method to suit the question. A short conversation can resolve wording quickly. A consequential decision needs an identifiable record.

Prepare the record from the decision actually made. Include unresolved disagreement when it affects later work.

Lesson 2 — Understand interests and authority

A stakeholder affects the undertaking or is affected by it. Stakeholders can hold legitimate but competing interests.

Operations may value reliability and access. Procurement may need a complete purchase package. A sponsor may need a credible investment and delivery outlook.

An interest explains why a participant cares. Authority identifies which decisions the participant can make. Expertise concerns what they can assess competently.

Do not infer one from another. A persuasive participant may lack the relevant authority. A quiet specialist may hold decisive technical knowledge.

Prepare a small stakeholder table:

Use the appointment as evidence for decision rights. Check applicable professional and legal obligations separately.

Consider who is absent from the discussion. Maintenance, construction, and affected users may reveal consequences that design participants overlook.

Ask about interests instead of attributing motives without evidence. Schedule pressure can reflect a real operating need.

Explain conflicts as consequences to resolve. Avoid treating a person as the problem when requirements or responsibilities conflict.

Lesson 3 — Explain and persuade credibly

A useful technical explanation connects a proposed action to its grounds and consequences. The listener should know what decision you seek.

Lead with the recommendation. Then identify the governing requirement, evidence, uncertainty, and effects on the listener's responsibilities.

Distinguish observed facts, interpretations, forecasts, and proposals. This helps the reader determine how each statement can be used.

Use plain words for the intended audience. Define necessary technical terms. Preserve conditions and units when shortening an explanation.

Explain uncertainty through the decision it limits. “The hydraulic basis is incomplete” becomes useful when you identify the missing conditions and dependent selection.

Use this message structure:

1. State the requested decision or action.
2. Identify the relevant basis.
3. Explain the important finding.
4. State the consequence.
5. Propose the response and required owner.

Persuasion helps people understand why action matters. It must remain open to evidence that challenges the recommendation.

Avoid concealing a weakness because it makes agreement harder. A decision made without a material limitation can expose others to consequences they did not understand.

Protect confidential information through the authorized communication route. Share enough permitted evidence for the recipient to examine the proposed reliance.

Identify a conflict of interest when it could affect a contribution. Use the actual appointment and professional obligations to determine its treatment.

Do not treat confidentiality as a reason to issue a misleading conclusion. Seek an appropriate route for the necessary concern.

Tailor detail without changing substance. A sponsor may need the decision and commitment effects. A specialist may also need the technical derivation.

Ask the recipient to state the expected next action. Correct any misunderstanding before connected work relies on it.

Lesson 4 — Handle disagreement and negotiation

Disagreement can concern facts, interpretation, objectives, acceptable consequences, or authority. These differences require different responses.

A disputed measurement may need another observation. A disputed scope choice may need the sponsor's decision. A technical deviation needs competent technical assessment.

First establish which kind of disagreement exists. Separate a shared observation from the conclusions participants draw from it.

Use a fair account of the other person's reasoning. Ask what evidence or condition could change each participant's position.

Compare options against shared requirements and constraints. Name differences in objectives where a common criterion cannot resolve them.

Negotiation seeks an arrangement that participants can carry out within their obligations. Agree on an action only when its effects and authority are understood.

Do not trade an unsupported technical acceptance for schedule agreement. Examine scheduling or commercial alternatives through their own consequences.

If the issue remains unresolved:

1. State the disputed proposition.
2. Record the evidence and positions.
3. Identify the work that depends on resolution.
4. Refer the question to the appropriate decision owner.
5. Continue independent authorized work.

Give participants a route to raise concerns outside the immediate meeting. Use the actual organization and professional obligations for consequential escalation.

A meeting can end while disagreement remains. Its record must distinguish the resulting decision from unresolved technical concerns.

Lesson 5 — Support reliable contributions

Human performance depends on competence, workload, available information, and working conditions. A clear assignment must account for those conditions.

Give the contributor a result they can understand and examine. Identify the purpose, inputs, interfaces, constraints, and required return.

Confirm that the person has enough competence and capacity. Arrange supervision or specialist support where the work needs it.

Agree on when the contribution is needed. Explain which activity depends on it. Ask the contributor to identify missing inputs and likely difficulties.

Use a review suited to the result's consequences. State what the review examines and who receives findings.

Maintain ownership through repair. A producer should understand the defect and its effect on the intended result.

Check actual progress through usable outputs and unresolved conditions. Document counts alone may conceal missing interfaces or unexamined conclusions.

Support truthful reporting through your response to bad news. Ask about the finding and the needed action before seeking someone to blame.

Distinguish an isolated error from a repeated competence, workload, or process problem. Correct the cause that evidence supports.

Mentoring should develop independent reasoning. Ask contributors to explain their basis and alternatives before supplying your preferred answer.

Worked example — A Northbank coordination meeting

B02 records pressure to retain Week 12. B01 requests rapid acceptance. Operations also asks about the proposed 22 litres per second duty.

The project engineer opens the meeting with the decision question: “What must be established before procurement can release an authorized purchase package?”

The engineer identifies A02 as the approved 18 litres per second basis. A05's 22 litres per second request remains a separate proposal.

The electrical engineer explains the 480 V offer and A04's observed 600 V connection. Capacity, protection, and compatibility remain to be assessed.

The mechanical engineer identifies the incomplete hydraulic basis and missing selected curve. The team does not turn those gaps into a pump selection.

The project manager explains the delivery concern. Procurement is asked to clarify the slot conditions and available commercial responses.

Operations is asked to define the required changeover behavior. Automatic changeover has been proposed, while A02 leaves the function for confirmation.

The team prepares proposed actions for the relevant roles. It identifies the technical information needed before acceptance and the scope decision needed for A05.

The meeting record preserves Week 12 as the target. It also preserves the unresolved technical conditions and absence of procurement release.

The participants check the record's meaning before relying on it. Any new decision is recorded as an exercise decision, separate from the supplied case records.

Transfer example — A hospital refurbishment

A contractor wants immediate ceiling closure. A facilities engineer needs access to inspect services. Both participants have a legitimate delivery concern.

They identify the inspection requirement, affected area, evidence needed, and closure authority. They can then examine a staged response without concealing the inspection condition.

Practice — Conduct a decision meeting

Use A01, A02, A04 to A06, and B01 to B03. Assign the sponsor, project manager, project engineer, operations, and procurement roles.

Prepare a brief for each role using only its supplied interests, duties, and concerns. Record any added exercise preference as an assumption.

Conduct a meeting about B01's acceptance request and A05's proposal. A mentor can play several roles for individual study.

Produce a stakeholder table, opening explanation, meeting record, and unresolved-concern route. Identify decision owners separately from action owners.

After the meeting, each participant explains the next authorized action. Compare those explanations with the record.

Discuss how you would disclose an interest that could affect your recommendation. Identify a permitted route for confidential supporting information.

Knowledge check

1. Why does receiving a message leave understanding unestablished?
2. How do interest, expertise, and authority differ?
3. What must a credible recommendation disclose about uncertainty?
4. How should a team distinguish factual disagreement from a scope disagreement?
5. What must the record show when a meeting ends with unresolved technical concerns?
6. How can a manager support truthful reporting and competent contributions?

Portfolio continuation and references

Keep your stakeholder table and corrected meeting record. Link each consequential finding to its source or exercise decision.

Carry the unresolved input owners into Course 07. Retain your explanation of the difference between scope authority and technical responsibility.

Source adaptation: Consolidated v8 §§1.1, 1.6, 3.3, 4.5, and 4.7. These sections address decision rights, shared basis, assignments, and consequential choices.

Use the shared references for professional communication and collaboration competencies. The core practice requires no external reading.

Assessed assignment — Establish an actionable common understanding

Prepare and conduct a review of your Course 05 memorandum. Use Packets A and B as the information available to participants.

Explain the technical findings, proposed flow change, procurement needs, and delivery concern. Seek decisions only within the authority stated in A01.

Explain how you would handle confidential evidence or a conflicting personal interest. Treat these as transfer questions, separate from Northbank facts.

Submit the stakeholder table, speaking brief, meeting record, participant understanding check, and any corrected wording.

The instructor assesses these five observable criteria:

1. The explanation preserves source status, uncertainty, scope, and technical limits, including a truthful response to pressure.
2. The stakeholder table distinguishes interests, expertise, contributions, and authority.
3. The discussion fairly represents different positions and identifies appropriate routes for conflicting interests and confidential evidence.
4. The record identifies decisions, conditions, action owners, and unresolved concerns accurately.
5. Participant explanations establish a common next action or expose differences for repair.