We shouldn't mistake "communication" with "meetings" or "talking a lot." But, communicating more through the right channels is indeed very helpful. Maybe through more documentation, maybe on Slack, maybe through weekly/monthly updates emails that one can easily ignore, if needed, or maybe through more listening.

The reason I think communication is very important is that limited or incorrect / stale information is a very big problem for medium-large organizations (the kind of organizations that have PMs). Many times, poor or lack of sufficient communication is the foundational reason for other issues that we see regarding seemingly always changing priorities, decisions being made out of nowhere, etc.

A good portion of people respond to overcommunication by simply tuning out all communication on that topic or from that source.

Yup. Cover up your own lack of utility by talking non-stop, holding numerous meetings, and 'following up'.

Absolutely... but the best PMs I know absolutely hate meetings, and are constantly trying to clear them off of their plates. I've actually had PMs on my team specifically petition to remove meetings and replace them with emails, Slack checkins, or (my favorite) nothing.

It's all about aligning incentives. You need to reward PMs for getting stuff done, rather than looking busy.

I agree. In my opinion, over-communication is to help maintain alignment between people/teams/functions. It can't replace real, valuable work and results. Ideally, if the PM is a good communicator, execution is a lot smoother for every team (because the PM is carrying the alignment/communication burden).

Over-communication never helps. Well, maybe it helps a PM feel like they're doing something, but to the detriment of everyone else.

I've always interpreted this message as "don't assume that everyone you're interacting with has all of the same context as you" and be proactive about sharing relevant context whenever you communicate. Not "send people the same message over and over or annoy people to make it seem like you're staying busy"

Yet other parts of the articles go into some depth about making sure that exact scenario doesn't happen!?

So either the advice around those parts doesn't truly work, or the PM just wants to be seen to be visible.

Maybe we're getting hung up on the definition of what 'over-communication' means. I don't disagree with you that there's a failure mode here, but as a mindset it's helpful when approaching your interactions with various functions in the business to keep in mind that communicating things that seem 'obvious' to you (because you think about them and talk about them a lot) might be really valuable to share with whoever you're talking to.

An example: I'm meeting with a sales rep who has a customer pushing really hard for a specific feature. It might be a good opportunity to walk them through what the overall strategy is over the next six months to help frame where their feedback might fit into it (or to explain why it doesn't and why we're unlikely to work on it). I might have shared this a month before at an all hands, but I can emphatically say from many past experiences that repeating it is helpful in these scenarios, even though it feels like I'm 'over communicating'

The other things listed out in the article feel like tactics that can help here, but for me 'don't assume everyone has the same information you have' is a really helpful mindset to hold.

That's an awesome way of putting it. I may borrow that! ;)

Please do!

I always viewed over-communication as akin to "calling your shots." Say what it is that you or others are going to do, so that people can call out if they expect issues or if they see gaps. It isn't necessarily about holding a ton of meetings or getting on some soapbox in the Black Turtleneck (tm) that all PMs are assigned on their first day. It's usually in the form of quick emails/slack messages/good meeting notes.

(I think that the article sums that concept up well)