Effective Project Communications Management

1. Chapter - 10 Project Communications Management

2. Objectives • Understand the importance of good communications in projects. • Discuss the process of identifying stakeholders and how to create a stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy. • Explain the elements of project communications planning and how to create a communications management plan. • Describe various methods for distributing project information, and calculate the number of communications channels in a project.

3. Objectives (cont.) • Recognize the importance of managing stakeholder expectations. • Understand how performance reporting helps stakeholders stay informed about project resources. • List various methods for improving project communications, such as managing conflicts, running effective meetings, using e-mail and other technologies effectively, and using templates.

4. The Importance of Good Communications Management • Many experts agree that the greatest threat to the success of any project, especially IT projects, is a failure to communicate. • Research shows that IT professionals must be able to communicate effectively to succeed in their positions. • Strong verbal skills are a key factor in career advancement for IT professionals.

5. Project Communications Management • The goal of ProjectCommunications management is to ensure timely and appropriate generations, collection, dissemination, storage, and disposition of project information.

6. Project Communications Management Processes • Identifying stakeholders:identifying everyone involved in or affected by the project and determining the best ways to manage relationships with them. • Planning communications: determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders. • Distributing information: making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner. • Managing stakeholder expectations: managing communications to satisfy the needs and expectations of project stakeholders and to resolve issues. • Reporting performance: collecting and disseminating performance information, including status reports, progress measurement, and forecasting.

7. Project Communications Management Summary

8. 1. Identifying Stakeholders • Recall that the ultimate goal of project management is to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project, so you must first identify who are your particular project stakeholders ?

9. 1. Identifying Stakeholders (cont.) • Two key outputs of this process include: • Stakeholder register: a public document that includes details related to the identified project stakeholders. These details include the stakeholder’s name, position, internal or external, and contact information. • Stakeholder management strategy: an approach to help increase the support of stakeholders throughout the project; often includes the basic and sensitive informations.

10. Stakeholder Management Strategey

11. 2. Planning Communications • Every project should include some type of communications management plan, a document that guides project communications. • It is important to know what kinds of information will be distributed to which stakeholders, by analyzing stakeholder communications needs.

12. Sample Stakeholder Communications Analysis

13. 3. Distributing Information • Getting the right information to the right people at the right timeand in a useful format is just as important as developing the information in the first place. • The Stakeholder Communications Analysis serves as a good starting point for information distribution. • The project managers and their teams must decide the best way to distribute the information.

14. 3. Distributing Information (cont.) • Effective distribution of information depends on project managers and project team members having good communication skills. • Important considerations for information distribution include: • Using technology to enhance information distribution. • Formal and informal methods for distributing information.

15. Distributing Important Information in an Effective and Timely Manner • Oral communication via meetings and informal talks helps bring important information-positive or negative-out into the open. • Oral communication also helps build stronger relationship among project personnel and project stakeholders. • Face-to-Face meetings are often more effective than electronic communications, particularly for sensitive information.

16. Importance of Face-to-Face Communication • Research says that in a face-to-face interaction: • 58 percent of communication is through body language. • 35 percent of communication is through how the words are said. • 7 percent of communication is through the content or words that are spoken. • Pay attention to more than just the actual words someone is saying. • A person’s tone of voice and body language say a lot about how he or she really feels.

17. Face-to-Face Informal Communications • Short, frequent meetings are often very effective in IT projects. • Stand-up meetings every week or every morning force people to focus on what they really need to communicate. • To encourage face-to-face informal communications: • Some companies have policies preventing the use of e-mail between certain hours or even entire days of the week.

18. Selecting the appropriate Communications Medium • Project managers must assess the needs of the organization, the project, and individuals in determining which communication medium to use, and when. • They must also be aware of new technologies that can enhance communications and collaboration. • Some types of communication media: hard copy, phone calls, voice mail, e-mail, meetings, and web sites

19. Other Communication Considerations • Geographic location and cultural background affect the complexity of project communications. • If project stakeholders are in different countries, it is difficult or impossible to schedule times for two-way communication during working hours. • Language barriers can also cause communication problems. • People from some cultures also prefer to communicate in ways that may be uncomfortable to others.

20. Determining the Number of Communications Channels • The number of people involved in a project is an important aspect of information distribution. • As the number of people involved increases, the complexity of communications increases because there are more communications channels or pathways through which people can communicate. • To calculate the number of communications channels use this simple formula: Number of communications channels = n ( n – 1 ) / 2 wheren is the number of people involved.

21. Examples • For two people : Number of communications channels = 2 ( 2 – 1 ) / 2 = 1 channel • For three people : Number of communications channels = 3 (3– 1 ) / 2 = 3 channels • For four people : Number of communications channels = 4 (4– 1 ) / 2 = 6 channels • For five people : Number of communications channels = 5 (5– 1 ) / 2 = 10 channels

22. The Impact of the Number of People on Communications Channels

23. Good Communications • Good communicators consider many factors before deciding how to distribute information, including: • The size of the group. • The type of information. • The appropriate communication medium.

24. 4. Managing Stakeholders • Project managers must understand and work with various stakeholders. • They should address how they can use various communications methods as well as their interpersonal and management skills to satisfy the needs and expectations of project stakeholders • Need to devise a way to identify and resolve issues.

25. 4. Managing Stakeholders (cont.) • Project sponsors can usually rank scope, time, and cost goals in order of importance and provide guidelines on how to balance the triple constraint. • This ranking is shown in an Expectations Management Matrix whichcan help clarify expectations. • Expectations Management Matrix may includes a list of measures of success, priorities, expectations, and a guidelines related to each measure.

26. 5. Reporting Performance • Performance reporting keeps stakeholders informed about how resources are being used to achieve project objectives. • Tow key outputs of performance reporting are: • Performance report: • Status reports describe where the project stands at a specific point in time. • Progress reports describe what the project team has accomplished during a certain period of time. • Forecasts: predict future project status and progress based on past information and trends.

27. Suggestions for improving Project Communications • There are some areas that all project managers and project team members should consider in their quests to improve project communications: • Using communication skills to manage conflicts. • Developing better communication skills. • Running effective meetings. • Using e-mail, instant messaging, and collaborative tools effectively. • Using templates for project communications.

28. Basic Modes For Handling Conflicts • Confrontation: project manager directly face a conflict using a problem-solving approach. • Compromise: project manager use a give-and-take approach to resolving conflicts. • Smoothing: project manager de-emphasize or avoids areas of difference and emphasize areas of agreement. • Forcing: the win-lose approach to conflict resolution. • Withdrawal: project manager retreat or withdraw from an actual or potential disagreement. • Collaborating: decision makers incorporate different viewpoints and insights to develop consensus and commitment

29. Conflict Can be Good • Conflict often produces important results, such as new ideas, better alternatives, and motivation to work harder and more collaboratively. • Research suggests that task-related conflict often improves team performance, but emotional conflict often depresses team performance.

30. Using Templates for Project Communications • Many technical people are afraid to ask for help. • Providing examples and templates for project communications saves time and money. • Organizations can develop their own templates, use some provided by outside organizations, or use samples from textbooks. • Recall that research shows that companies that excel in project management make effective use of templates.

31. Lessons-Learned Reports • The project manager and project team members should each prepare a lessons-learned report. • A reflective statement that documents important things an individual learned from working on the project . • The project manager often combines information from all of the lessons-learned reports into a project summary report.

32. Project Archives • It is also important to organize and prepare project archives. • Project archives are a complete set of organized project records that provide an accurate history of the project. • These archives can provide valuable information for future projects as well.

33. Project Web Sites • Many project teams create a Project Web Site to store all or part of their project information, including various templates and lessons-learned reports. • Project Web Site provide a centralized way of delivering project documents and other communications. • Project team can create the site using various types of software, such as enterprise project management software.

34. Chapter Summary • The goal of project communications management is to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and disposition of project information. • Main processes include: • Identify stakeholders. • Plan communications. • Distribute information. • Manage stakeholder expectations. • Report performance.