Push, Pull and Interactive Communications - PMP Exam Tips

In this video, we are going to discuss the difference between push, pull, and interactive communications that you will need to know for your upcoming PMP exam. And if you haven't done so already, be sure to check out our free course at www.examspm.com/free where you will learn the exact strategy and study plan you need to implement in order to pass your PMP certification in the next 6 weeks. Okay, now let's move on to the different types of communication channels. Though many different types of communication exist, such as verbal, nonverbal, formal, informal, written, or oral, they all fall into 3 different categories: push communication, pull communication, and interactive communication. This lovely diagram here shows you a visual diagram about the differences between these different types of communication. Now let's dive deeper into all 3 of these different types of communications. Starting off with push communication. So you use push communication when you want to send information to your project stakeholders. This method is useful for time-sensitive information and when you expect to get feedback. Push is kind of a broadcast and you as a sender control it, determine which stakeholder will receive it and at what time. You use this communication method when no urgent response is required from the stakeholders, but some sort of action may be required from them after receiving receiving this message. So for example, you want to have a presentation session with your stakeholders, so you send them an email to invite them to the presentation. Other examples of push communication can include memos, letters, voicemails, text, call, email, etc. The benefit of push communication is that it helps send information to a large group of stakeholders quickly. Next up, we have pull communication. You use pull communication when the information in nature is pretty general. So you use this type of communication when you're just sending out general updates about your project. For example, you upload some information to a central server to let the stakeholders access it whenever they wish. You're not going to send them an email to tell them that it's already up there. You're just going to upload it into the server and they can pull this information whenever they choose to. In pull communication method, the stakeholder pulls the information as per their request. You use this communication method when the information is not urgent, not sensitive, and if you are not expecting some sort of response from your stakeholder. You're just informing them about something that's happening on your project. You use this communication method when the information is pretty informative and general in nature. The benefit of using this method is that the information can be shared with a large group of stakeholders in the shortest possible time. The disadvantage of this method is that you can't track who has accessed this information or if it has been received by a particular stakeholder or not, and you also can't confirm whether those specific stakeholders have understood the information that you have sent out. Some examples of pull communication can be blogs, intranet lessons learned database, bulletin boards, etc. Lastly, we have interactive communications. So both push and pull communications are one-way and they don't occur in real time, and they are not the most effective communication methods because you're not getting any feedback from the receiver. You can't use these communication methods when you need to resolve a conflict or have a tough negotiation. So when you need to negotiate with someone or resolve a conflict, you need to do that in real time. This is when you use interactive communications. This is the most effective way to communicate as it's multi-directional and occurs in real time. So here you're meeting with the stakeholders to discuss the issue, you're conveying the information ideally face-to-face and getting their feedback instantly. The participants are able to clear up their doubts immediately. In this method, you can make sure that every stakeholder receives the correct information and understands it. So you use this method when the information is sensitive or urgent feedback is required. Some examples of this communication include meetings, workshops, and video conferencing, training, etc. The disadvantage of this communication is the difficulty of bringing all the stakeholders together in one place. Sometimes a few stakeholders won't be able to attend the meeting, which causes problems down the road because they won't have access to all of the information. Communication skills are super important to manage stakeholders. You can use any method of communication depending on the situation and the requirements. However, interactive communication helps you get feedback immediately and get the stakeholders to buy in immediately as well. You can use push and pull communication when you have many stakeholders or if they're spread out in different geographic locations and the information is not classified or urgent. Although push and pull communication methods require less effort and stress, the feedback obtained from these communications is not as good as what you'll get from interactive communications. Now from your PMBOK Guide, you will also have the communication model which we have in this slide right here. So first you will encode the message and send it to the receiver. The receiver will decode the message and give you an acknowledgement message. Then you will decode the message that the receiver has sent you and send back a feedback message. Now during this communication model, there's something to note, and that's called the noise. So noise is what happens When, when you encode a certain message but the receiver receives a different message. When we communicate with other people, there's always a chance for miscommunication, and you need to be aware of this when you are communicating to your stakeholders. If you enjoyed this training, be sure to sign up for our free course at www.examspm.com/free where we will teach you the exact strategies to pass your PMP certification in the next 6 weeks. I can't wait to see you on this training. Thank you so much for joining us today.