Project communications management

Project Communications Management

By : Yogender S Rana , contact me at [email protected]

Learning Objective

Communication is a project manager’s most important skill.

Project Managers have to communicate with management, customers, the project team members, and the rest of the stakeholders involved with the projects.

The formula for calculating the communication channel is

N(N-1)/2where N represents the number of shareholders

The communication plan should detailed how information is gathered, organized ,accessed and dispersed.

The communication model illustrates the flow of communication from the sender to the receiver.


Project communication management includes the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution , storage, retrieval and ultimate disposition of the project information. Project Managers spend the majority of their time communication with team members and other project stakeholders.

Project communications Management processes include the following.1. Identify stakeholders2. Plan communications3. Distribute information4. Manage Stakeholder expectations5. Report Performance

Project Communications Management processes include the following1. International (Within the project) and external (Customer, public) 2. Vertical (Up and down the organization) and horizontal (with peers)3. Formal and informal4. Official and Unofficial5. Written and oral6. Verbal and non-verbal


Identify stakeholdersIdentify stakeholders is the process of identifying all people or organization impacted by the project documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement and impact on project success. Project stakeholders are persons and organizations such as customers, sponsors, performing organization and the public that are actively involved in the projects. Inputs to the process include Project Charter and Procurement Documents.

Step 1: Identifying other stakeholders is usually done by interviewing identified stakeholders and expending the list of all potential stakeholders are included

Step 2: Power interest grid/grounding the stakeholders based on their level of authority and their level or concern(“interest”) regarding the project output.

Step 3: Access how key stakeholders are likely to react or respond in various situations in order to plan how to influence them to enhance their support and mitigate potential negative impacts.


Stakeholder register and strategy


Stakeholder register contains all details related to the identified stakeholder including

Identification information: Name, Organization, position, location, role in the project, contact information.

Assessment Information: Major requirement, main expectation, potential influence project, phase in the life cycle with the most interest.

Stakeholder Classification: Internal/External, support/neutral/register etc.

Management Strategy defines an approach to increase the support and minimize negative impact of stakeholder throughout.

Stakeholder StakeholderInterest in the Project

Assessmentof Impact

Potential Strategies for gaining support and reducing obstacles

Communication Channels

Identify common communication channels within a project is an important task of the project manager. The number of channels depend upon the number of members and stakeholders in a project.

The formula for calculating the number of channel is :


Number of channel= N(N-1)/2

Where N stands for the number of stakeholders

Plan CommunicationsPlan communication is the process of determining the project stakeholder information needs and defining a communication approach. Effective communication means that the information is provided right format at the right time and with the right impact.

Outputs: Communication Management plan

Tools and Techniques

Communication Requirements Analysis: The project manager should consider the number of potential communication channels paths as an indicator of the complexity of a project’s communications.

Communication Technology: A project team may use techniques from brief conversations all the way through to extended meetings or from simple written documents to material that is accessible online as methods of communication.


Plan Communications

Communication Methods

Interactive Communication includes meetings, phone calls and video conferencing.

Push Communication includes letters, memos, reports, emails, faxes, voice mails, press releases etch.

Pull Communication includes intranet sites, e-learning and knowledge repositories.


Communications Plan

A communication plan organizes and documents the various metrics of communication. It includes:

WHAT: Expected format, content and details of what is to be communicated.

WHOM: Appropriate information as demanded by the stakeholders needs to be imparted to them.

WHEN: All types of communication have a certain schedule.

HOW: The point of origin of information, to whom it has to be sent & the mode in which it must be sent needs to be documented in the communication structure.

A communication plan also provides:

Escalation processes & time frames for moving issues higher in the organization when they can’t be solved at the lower levels.

Instruction on how to revise & update the communication management plan during the cours of theproject.

A Project glossary.


Distribute Information

Distribute information is the process of making relevant information available to project stakeholders. The focus here is mainly in the execution process, which includes implementing the communications management plan.

Tools and Techniques: Information Distribution Tools

Escalation processes & time frames for moving issues higher in the organization when they can’t be solved at the lower levels.

Hard copy document distributed manual filing systems, press releases and shared access electronic database.

Electronic communication and conferencing tools, such as e-mail, fax , voice mail, telephone, video and web conferencing, website and web publising.

Electronic tools for project management, such as web interface to interface to scheduling and project management software, meeting and virtual office support software, portals and collaborative work management tools.


Manager Stakeholder Expectation

Manage stakeholder expectation is the process of communicating and working with stakeholders to need their needs and addressing issues as they occur. The project manager is responsible for stakeholder expectations management.

Inputs includes the issue Log. The issues are clearly stated and categorized based on urgency and potential impact.

Inputs include the change Log which documents all the change that occur during a project.

Tools and techniques include interpersonal and management skills as well as communication methods.


Report Performance

Report performance is the process of collecting and distributing performance information reports, progress measurements and forecasts. The performance process involves the periodic collection and analysis of base line versus actual data to understand and communicate the project progress and performance as well as to forecast the projects results.

Tools and Techniques:

Variance Analysis: is an after-the-fact look at what caused a difference between the baseline and the actual performance.

Forecasting Method: is the process of predicting future project performance based on the actual to date.


Report Performance

Forecasting methods may be classified in different categories.

Time Series Methods: Time series methods use historical data as the basis for estimating future outcomes.

Causal/Econometric Methods: If the causes are understood, projections of the influencing variables can be made and used in the forecast, Examples of methods in the category includes regression analysis.

Judgmental Methods: Judgmental forecasting methods incorporate intuitive judgments , opinions and probability estimates.

Outputs: Performance reports


Thanks for reading

By

Yogender Singh Rana


Education

Project communications management