5. What is a good general rule regarding formal and informal communication for any project?

As he walks out of the president’s office, Philip shakes his head. It was clear that the president was a bit embarrassed that she did not know the details of her company’s configuration management system; she seemed even more embarrassed that she will have to cancel an agreement she made last night at a dinner meeting with her counterpart in HeavyEng, a contractor. “In a way it serves her right,” he mutters.
Since Philip was appointed procurement manager at TechnoVehicle, several issues relating to communication have come up, especially concerning the development of a vehicle that the company has been designing and for which HeavyEng made the prototype and is preparing to produce.
The product is a state-of-the-art firefighting vehicle on order by several airports. Philip has been concerned about the constant meetings between the engineering staffs of the two companies and the numerous design modifications it has apparently led to. However, he also realizes the necessity of such meetings to ensure cost-effective manufacturing. And now the president called him in to say that she had told HeavyEng’s president that TechnoVehicle will in the future supply HeavyEng with electronic copies of the drawings instead of the “hard” copies they have been supplying. He had to inform her that the “hard” copies of the drawings—not the electronic ones—are under configuration control and that what she agreed to at the dinner meeting would simply not work.