News & Insights

Internal Project Communications – The Forgotten Risk

Complex projects bring together multiple organisations and stakeholders to deliver high stakes initiatives. Many people, multiple entities often with diverse or even competing objectives.

Experienced project leaders understand the importance of communicating with the wider communities impacted by their projects. Many have learned the hard way on excluding local stakeholders or under communicating project progress.  Most projects now have a detailed external stakeholder strategy and teams devoted to its implementation.

The same cannot be said for internal communications. Project Health Insights™ 2025 research review highlights internal communications to be a source of frustration and disconnection for team members. Even when we look at outstanding projects we see mediocre results:

Great Project Results – Internal Communications

74% - hear about changes that affect them in a timely manner

78% - receive necessary information about the performance of the project

77% - communication between different program organisations is effective

In ‘at risk’ projects the numbers are much worse.

40% of team members report that internal communication, flow of information and transparency of information are unacceptable.

Our research also highlights a strong relationship between:

• poor internal communication

• low levels of trust

• high levels of rumour and gossip on a project.  

These results should concern all project leaders. Without the free flowing of information projects risk becoming silos of mistrust that stifle collaboration.

What is needed is a communication system that prioritises sharing information about the whole project ecosystem.  The good news is when project leaders prioritise and fund internal project level communication it can unlock enormous energy and capacity for teams to be engaged and collaborative.

On great projects leadership teams communicate as a ‘we’ and as a connected group. Some teams actively utilise project apps, use visual design resources and share time lapse videos to help team members see progress and connect easily with other teams.

The old sausage sizzle, occasional town hall, and tool-box updates are not enough. Team members want to feel part of the big picture project and want to contribute. Lift project communication and you’ll lift the project.

‍