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ANSWER: 1. Planning
communications management involves determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders. Who needs what information? When will they need it? How will the information be given to them? The outputs of this process include a communications management plan, project management plan updates, and project documents updates.
2. Managing communications involves creating, distributing, storing, retrieving, and disposing of project communications based on the communications management
plan. The main outputs of this process are project communications, project management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process assets updates. Recall from Chapter 4 that organizational process assets include formal and informal plans, policies, procedures, guidelines, information systems, financial systems, management systems, lessons learned, and historical information. These assets help people understand, follow, and improve business processes in an
organization.
3. Monitoring communications involves ensuring that stakeholder communication needs are met.
ANSWER: It is not enough for project team members to submit status reports to their project managers and other stakeholders and assume that everyone who needs to know that information will read the reports. Some technical professionals might assume that submitting the appropriate status reports is sufficient because they are introverts and prefer
communicating that way. Occasionally, that approach might work, but many people prefer informal communications. 75 percent of the general population are extroverts, so they enjoy talking to other people. Often, many nontechnical professionals—from colleagues to managers—prefer to have a two-way conversation about project information, rather than reading detailed reports, e-mails, or Web pages to try to find pertinent information.
Many colleagues and managers want to know the people working on
their projects and develop a trusting relationship with them. They use informal discussions about the project to develop these relationships. Therefore, project managers must be good at nurturing relationships through good communication. Many experts believe that the difference between good project managers and excellent project managers is their ability to nurture relationships and use empathic listening skills.
Effective creation and distribution of information depends on project managers
and project team members having good communication skills. Communicating includes many different dimensions such as writing, speaking, and listening, and project personnel need to use all of these dimensions in their daily routines. In addition, different people respond positively to different levels or types of communication. For example, a project sponsor may prefer to stay informed through informal discussions held once a week over coffee. The project manager needs to be aware of this
preference and take advantage of it. The project sponsor will give better feedback about the project during these informal talks than through some other form of communication. Informal conversations allow the project sponsor to exercise a leadership role and provide insights and information that are critical to the success of the project and the organization as a whole. Short face-to-face meetings are often more effective than electronic communications, particularly for sensitive
information.
How to create a project communication management plan
Project managers need to clearly outline how they will manage communications across their projects. This is done by creating a project communication management plan.
When creating a plan, project managers should follow these five steps:
- Decide your objectives: What will be the purpose of your communication? You may use some communication tools for awareness, such as a status report. Others may require action, such as requiring a sponsor to authorize spending or a customer to approve project testing.
- Determine your audience: Who are the stakeholders in this project? You should make an extensive list of everyone involved. Consider anyone impacted by the project or who influences its success. This list should include team members, sponsors, customers, and other interested parties.
- Write your message: What will the message be for each type of communication? This is the actual content that will be shared. Key components to be communicated include scope, schedule, budget, objectives, risks, and deliverables.
- Choose your channel: How will the message be delivered? Will it be a formal report emailed out to all stakeholders? Or will it be an informal verbal debrief during a team meeting?
- Set a timeline: When will you deliver your message? Do your stakeholders require weekly or monthly reports? Is there a deadline to meet? Consider varying time zones and employee schedules here.
Your project communication management plan should be detailed enough to lay out why you’re sending a message, who you’re sending it to, what specific information will be sent, how you’re going to send it, and when.
Involving your stakeholders in the creation of this plan is important. You need to understand their communication preferences and expectations. If you over-communicate, they may stop paying attention. But, if you under-communicate, it can lead to misunderstandings and issues.
The golden rule here is that, to be a good communicator, you need to be a good listener. It may seem obvious, but Harvard Business Review points out that listening is an overlooked leadership tool. Pay attention to all the factors and take every opinion into account before creating your project communication management plan.