Why each stakeholder needs its own sound

Imagine a concert. Thousands of spectators enjoy their favorite songs, high-quality sound, absorbing the energy of a live performance. But did you know that the sound that musicians hear on stage is completely different from the sound that reaches the audience? This is the result of the stage monitoring system – special equipment that allows each band member to hear exactly what they need to perform perfectly.

Stage Monitoring: What's Happening on Stage?

Stage monitors are used at concerts, which allow musicians to clearly hear their parts, without being distracted by the general noise, and the rest of the accompaniment in a balance convenient for performance. For example, it is important for a drummer to hear the guitar and the metronome to keep the rhythm, but a clear sound of the vocals is not necessarily needed. For a guitarist, his instrument is critically important first of all, and the rhythm section. A musician on backing vocals needs to hear his voice much louder than the main vocals, and so on. This individual sound setting helps each musician to stay in perfect synchronization with the group, ensuring high quality performance. Surely you have paid attention to the special headphones that musicians have. By the way, vocalists often take out one earphone to hear their mix on one side, and to hear the audience and interact with them on the other.

By the way, the metronome, the most important tool for maintaining the tempo, is heard only by the musicians through their personal headphones, while the audience enjoys the finished, assembled track. Everyone hears exactly what they need to achieve the result.

Information in the project is like ear monitoring

Now let's look at this situation through the prism of project management. Any project involves many stakeholders, each with their own goals and objectives. These could be business stakeholders who want to see the project's progress in the form of strategic reports or financial indicators. Or they could be technical specialists who need detailed information on the solution architecture, task deadlines, or bugs that have arisen.

Just like musicians on stage, different stakeholder groups should receive information that is relevant and useful to them.

Example:

• Business stakeholders, like concert audiences, want to see the finished picture: high-level results, project objectives, deadlines, and costs. They don’t need to know how technical issues were specifically addressed.

• Technical stakeholders, like musicians, work inside the “scene”. They need detailed monitoring of what is happening: tasks, difficulties, bugs, deadlines. Transparency of every detail of the project is important to them, since it directly affects their work.

Overloading one group with unnecessary information can cause confusion and reduce work efficiency. Just as a musician cannot play his part correctly if he hears too many unnecessary sounds. The task of the project manager is to ensure that the information flow for each stakeholder group is fine-tuned so that they can perform their tasks as efficiently as possible.

Project management is rock and roll

Successful project management is like a perfect concert. When each stakeholder group gets their “music,” the entire project begins to sound like a single, coherent track. Stage monitoring is not just a technology, but a philosophy: everyone hears what they need to be successful. And if you manage to build the right communication in a project, as in a concert, magic occurs – a result that amazes.

In the end, project management is like rock and roll. It is the art of synchronizing all project participants, setting them on the same wavelength, and making the result exciting for everyone. So don’t forget: it’s important not only to play music, but also to hear it correctly.

Sincerely yours, Project Rock-Star \m/