Project Communication Management

Plan Communications Management

• Aims to create effective communication throughout the project.
• Involves understanding stakeholder information needs.
• Leverages organizational resources.
• Includes aligning with the project's goals.
• Results in delivering the right messages to the right people at the right time, with a clear, documented plan.
• Keeps stakeholders informed and engaged

Communication Requirements Analysis

• Ensures stakeholders get the correct information at the right time.
• Relies on interviews, workshops, and past project lessons.
• Creates a clear plan for effective communication that delivers value by presenting information correctly.
• Stakeholder needs are obtained from stakeholder register and engagement plans.
• Consider communication channels, organizational charts, development approach, logistics, and internal/external/legal needs.
• Transforms communication into a strategic tool that keeps everyone aligned.

Communication Technology

• Choosing the appropriate communication tools ensures connected and informed stakeholders.
• Common methods: These include meetings, written documents, databases, and social media.
• Goals: Ensure everyone remains aligned.
• Key factors for tool selection are the urgency of information, technology reliability, ease of use, project environment, data sensitivity/confidentiality.
• Thoughtful tool selection leads to effective collaboration and project success.

Communication Models

• A message's interpretation relies on the sender's emotions, knowledge, background, personality, culture, and biases.
• The receiver's emotions, knowledge, and personal experiences influence message understanding.
• The result can create potential misinterpretations or “noise.”
• Understanding these dynamics helps craft effective strategies for one-on-one or small group communications.
• This practice is less suited for channels like emails or social media.
• This fosters tailored and meaningful connections in person.

Communication Methods

• Communication serves as the backbone of successful projects, shaping how information flows among stakeholders.

Core Communication Methods:

• Interactive Communication: Real-time, two-way exchanges for dynamic discussions and clarifications.
• Push Communication: One-way sends information directly. Appropriate for updates and not for dialogue.
• Pull Communication: Useful for large audiences or detailed info who can access content on their own terms.

Communication Styles for Different Needs

• Interpersonal Communication: Personal, face-to-face exchanges.
• Small Group Communication: Suitable for discussions with 3-6 people, such as team meetings.
• Public Communication: A speaker addresses a large group, ideal for presentations.
• Mass Communication: Information is shared with large, anonymous groups with little interaction.
• Networks & Social Computing: Supports many-to-many communication using social media and collaborative tech.

Tools and Techniques for Effective Communication

• Your toolkit contains notice boards, emails, presentations, and social media to align communication methods with project goals.

Communication Styles Assessment

• This assessment identifies preferred communication methods to deal with challenging stakeholders.
• It tailors strategies and materials, improving connections, and ensuring effective communication efforts after stakeholder engagement.

Political Awareness

• A key project management skill involves tailoring communications to fit the project environment and organizational landscape by understanding the strategies, goals, power and influence

Cultural Awareness

• Understanding differences among individuals, groups, and organizations.
• Involves tailoring communication strategies to bridge gaps, reduce misunderstandings, and promote smooth and effective collaboration.

Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix

• This matrix identifies stakeholder positions and the actions needed to drive project results.
• It helps in building relationships, ensuring project success by turning passive observers into active project champions.

Stakeholder Engagement Spectrum

• Unaware: Stakeholders do not know about the project.
• Resistant: Stakeholders know about the project but resist changes.
• Neutral: Stakeholders are aware and indifferent.
• Supportive: Stakeholders are informed and on board.
• Leading: Stakeholders actively work to ensure project success.

Closing The Communication Gap

• C marks the current engagement level in the stakeholder matrix
• D shows the desired level needed for success
• The key is to craft targeted communication strategies to engage and support stakeholders.

Plan Risk Management

• Aims to align the level of effort, type, and focus on risk management with the project's risks and importance.

Expert Judgment

• Expert judgment taps into the specialized knowledge and experience of professionals to ensure project success

Identify Risks

• Aims to spot potential challenges and opportunities
• Focuses on uncovering individual risks and their characteristics to give the team a clear view to prepare effective responses.

Checklists

• Checklists help you avoid repeating mistakes and serve as reminders of what needs attention.
• Review and update regularly to identify risks and keep your project moving smoothly.
• Use them as a guide only, because capturing every detail is impossible

Root Cause Analysis

• Root cause analysis uncovers the true reason behind a problem, defect, or risk to prevent recurrent problems and create lasting solutions.

Assumption and Constraint Analysis

• Assumptions and constraints shape the scope, guide estimates, and set the stage for execution and success.
• It uncovers risks hidden in inaccuracies, inconsistencies, or incomplete information to create smoother project execution and outcomes.

SWOT Analysis

• This technique evaluates strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to uncover potential risks

Prompt List

• This checklist of risk categories supports focused risk identification.
• Strategic frameworks like PESTLE, TECOP, or VUCA make it easier to pinpoint potential challenges and plan for success.

Performing Qualitative Risk Analysis

• It identifies key project risks, assesses the likelihood and potential impact of each risk, and focuses on the high-priority risks.

Risk Data Quality Assessment

• It determines the accuracy and reliability of data about project risks, serving as the foundation for effective risk analysis.
• The quality is improved by capturing stakeholder perceptions on completeness, objectivity, relevance, and timeliness to offer overall quality scores.

Risk Probability and Impact Assessment:

• The likelihood of a specific risk’s occurrence and its potential effect on project objectives assessed

Factors to Prioritize Risks

• Urgency: Response time needed
• Proximity: How soon risks may affect objecives
• Dormancy: How long before the effects of a risk are noticed
• Manageability: Ease of handling or reducing risk
• Controllability: Control over the outcome
• Detectability: Ease of identifying a risk
• Connectivity: Linkage to other project risks
• Strategic Impact: Effect on organizational goals
• Propinquity: Importance to stakeholders

Risk Categorization

• Categorize risks by source, impact, or factors like project phase, budget, or team roles to determine approaches outlined in the risk management plan for improved risk insights

Probability and Impact Matrix

• This matrix prioritizes risks by assessing likelihood and potential impact on objectives like cost, time, or scope.

Hierarchical Charts

• Hierarchical Charts: Classic organizational charts visualize team positions and relationships.
• Work Breakdown Structures (WBS): Break down deliverables into organized work packages for the overall project.
• Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS): Zoom in on the organization's departments and units, displaying project activities and work packages.
• Resource Breakdown Structure: Listing team members and physical resources in a hierarchy that supports effective planning, management and control

Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis

• The process of numerically analyzing the combined effect of identified individual project risks and other sources of uncertainty on overall project objectives to quantify project risk exposure and add insight for risk response planning.

Representation of Uncertainty

• Probability distributions (triangular, normal, lognormal, beta, uniform, and discrete) represent unclear activity durations, costs, or resource needs to capture activity variability.
• The distributions can include probabilistic branches that represent optional activities.

Sensitivity Analysis

• It identifies factors with the biggest impact on project outcomes

Tornado Diagram

• This diagram ranks factors by correlation strength and highlights project risks, high-variability activities, or sources of uncertainty that significantly impact success.

Decision Tree Analysis

• Provides visual costs, risks, and rewards for the best course of action when faced with uncertainty.

Influence Diagram

• Tools capturing key project elements and how they interact while uncertainty arises to apply Monte Carlo analysis.

Plan Risk Responses

• The process of finding the best strategies to manage risks effectively by allocating resources and integrating necessary actions into the project plan is a continuous effort.

Strategies for Managing Threats

• Escalate: Transfers the threat
• Avoid: Proactive steps of threat removal
• Transfer: Delegate the responsibility
• Mitigate: Reduce likelihood or it's impact
• Accept: Accept the threat without taking action

Strategies for Seizing Opportunities

• Escalate: Notifies relevant parties with ownership acceptance
• Exploit: Assign expert team for highest chance of success
• Share: Partner to maximize potential
• Enhance: Target amplifying factors
• Accept: Monitor without proactive measures

Contingent Response Strategies

• Escalate: Transfer appropriately to relevant personnel
• Exploit: Guarantee success for high-priority

Strategies for Overal Project Risk

• Avoid: Reduce uncertainty by removing scope elements
• Exploit: Maximize opportunities with high-benefit elements
• Transfer/Share: Collaboration for overall positive or negative risk
• Mitigate/Enhance: Reduces positive with replanning and tweaking
• Accept: Acceptance with passive monitoring

Procurement Management

• Outlines procurement strategies and identifies the best vendors, determining the project needs

Market Research

• Market research teams can discover industry insights, assess capabilities, identify market trends, opportunities by tapping into conferences, online reviews, for emerging technology and seller selection

Market Analysis Components

• Make-or-buy analysis
• Source section analysis

Make-Or-Buy Analysis

• This analysis helps determine if the project team should handle tasks or outsource them.

Source Selection Analysis

• This balanced analysis of project requirements determines what matters most.

Source Selection Methods:

• Least Cost: Securing the low cost with clear outcomes.
• Qualifications Only: Selecting bidder with credibility, expertise, and references.
• Quality-Based/Highest Technical Proposal Score: Prioritizing the technical and cost submissions.
• Quality- and Cost-Based: Balances quality and cost
• Sole Source: Need to work with a specific source on justified used only.
• Fixed Budget: Set amount for proposed sellers.

Plan Stakeholder Engagement

• Connect with stakeholders by understanding stakeholder needs, expectations, interests for the actionable plan.

Benchmarking

• By comparing actual and planned project practices you can uncover best practices and ideas.

Root Cause Analysis

• Digs deep instead of surface, helps solve future headaches by preventing recurring problems.

Prioritization/Ranking:

• Ensure focus on what matters most, allowing insight into stakeholder requirements in projects