Project Communications Management

• Project communications management includes the processes needed to ensure project information needs and stakeholders' needs are met through support development and activities.
• Project communications management components:
• Develop a strategy to ensure effective stakeholder communications.
• Conduct activities necessary to execute the communications strategy.

Project Communication Management Processes:

• Plan Communications Management: Develop a suitable approach and plan for project communications activities based on stakeholder information needs, organizational assets, and project requirements.
• Manage Communications: Ensure timely and appropriate collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and final disposition of project information.
• Control Communications: Monitor and control communications throughout the project lifecycle to ensure stakeholders' information needs are met.

Communication Dimensions

• Communication describes ways to send or receive information through communication activities or supports: meetings and presentations, or supports like emails, social networks, reports, or project documents.
• Project managers spend most of their time communicating with team members and other project stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization.
• Effective communication bridges diverse stakeholders from different cultural and organizational contexts, with varied expertise, perspectives, and interests.
• Communication activities have various dimensions:
• Internal: Focus is on stakeholders within the project and organization.
• External: Focus on external stakeholders like clients, suppliers, other projects/organizations, government bodies, the public, and environmental advocates.
• Formal: Reports, formal meetings (regular/extraordinary), agendas, meeting minutes, stakeholder briefings, and presentations.
• Informal: General communication via emails, social networks, internet sites, and ad hoc discussions.
• Hierarchical Interest: A stakeholder/group's position related to the project team influences the message format/content.
  • Ascending: Stakeholders in senior management.
  • Descending: The team and others contributing to project work.
  • Horizontal: The project manager's peers or project team members.
• Official: Annual reports or reports to regulatory/governmental bodies.
• Unofficial: Communications aimed at building/maintaining project profile and recognition, fostering strong relationships between the team/stakeholders through various informal means.
• Written and Oral: Verbal (words and inflections) and non-verbal (gestures and actions), including social networks, websites, and press releases.

Five C's of Communication

• Misunderstandings can be minimized through written communication, excluding social networks, or traditional oral.
• Correct: Accuracy in grammar/spelling avoids disturbing and creating distortions in the message, maintaining credibility.
• Concise: Succinct expression that eliminates superfluous words reduces potential misunderstandings of intent.
• Clear: Objective expression oriented towards the reader's needs, ensuring the audience's interests and requirements are considered.
• Coherent: Logical flow of ideas organized coherently employing markers, such as introductions and summaries, in writing.
• Control: Flow of words and ideas can be managed with graphics or summaries.
• The 5 C's of written communication are supported by communication skills:
• Active Listening: Maintaining contact with the speaker/recapping conversations promotes effective information exchange.
• Cultural and Personal Sensitivity: Raising team awareness of cultural/personal differences prevents misunderstandings, strengthening communication.
• Stakeholder Expectation Identification, Definition, and Management: Negotiation with stakeholders limits conflicting expectations among stakeholders
• Skill Improvement: Enhancing member competencies during activities such as:
  • Convincing others to take action
  • Motivating for encouragement or reassurance
  • Providing support to improve performance
  • Negotiating to achieve agreement and reduce approval delays.
  • Resolving conflicts to prevent disruptive impacts.

Emerging Trends and Practices in Project Communication

• Beyond emphasizing stakeholders and recognizing engagement value for projects, devising/applying suitable communication strategies to sustain effective relationships is vital.
• Includes elements such as:
• Stakeholder involvement in project reviews: For each endeavor, the community comprises project team members, groups, and organizations vital to achieving project goals and organizational results. Effective communication includes regularly reviewing and updating the stakeholder register to manage changes in their membership/behavior.
• Stakeholder involvement in project meetings: Project meetings should include external project stakeholders or organization members. Agile approaches can apply across project types, often involving daily Scrums, to discuss recent achievements/pending issues, and plan daily work.

Planning Communications Management

• Planning communications management develops an appropriate approach that aligns with each stakeholder group and projects needs. The primary benefit is engaging stakeholders effectively by presenting pertinent info in a timely manner. Executed periodically throughout the project’s duration.
• An effective communication management plan recognizes stakeholders' different information needs and is developed early in the project lifecycle. It should be revised and modified regularly, especially when the stakeholder community changes or at new phase.
• Though all projects require communicating information, the information needs/distribution methods vary widely. Methods of preserving, retrieving, and archiving project information should also be considered/documented.

Information Sources for Project Communication

• Information includes:
• Stakeholder communication needs from register/engagement plan.
• Number of potential communication channels, including one-to-one/group interactions.
• Organizational charts.
• Project organization, responsibilities, relationships, and stakeholder interdependencies.
• Development approach.
• Disciplines, services, and project-related domains.
• Logistics related to the location/number of involved individuals.
• Internal/External information needs.
• Legal Requirements.

Communication Models

• Represent the communication process linearly (sender/receiver), interactively via feedback, or complexly with human elements, such as basic sender/receiver models. In this model, communication is a process with sender and receiver.
• The message is conveyed before comprehension. Encodage occurs when the message is coded into symbolic form, such as text. Transmission is done via a channel, but may be compromised by tech issues, noise, or other loss factors. Decoding is how the receiver translates the data into a useful form.
• Interactive Communication Model: Describes communication as a two-part sender/receiver process, emphasizing the need to ensure message understanding while noise disrupts comprehension. Interactive communication includes acknowledgment.
• The recipient may confirm receipt, but this doesn't mean they agree/comprehend the message. Feedback/response is the receiver encodes those thoughts to the transmitter.

Communication Responsibility

• In communication, sender responsibility transmits clear, complete information that confirms the message's interpretation. Ensure integrity and appropriate response in an environment is essential.

Communication Methods

• Involve spreading and receiving information among project stakeholders:
• Interactive: Involves two/more parties exchanging information immediately through conference calls, messaging, social network, and video conferencing.
• Push: Directly sends information or messages for specific recipients ensuring proper delivery and comprehension to the targeted audience. Push includes written communications/press releases.
• Push communications doesn't ensure effectively reaching or understanding the audience.
• Pull: Uses large or complex information volumes, where recipients require access while adhering to data security protocols, which often includes intranet archives.

Interpersonal Communication Approaches

• Exchanging information between individuals face-to-face.
• Small Group Communications are composed of groups with six or below.
• Public Speaking: Single-person speaking to a group.
• Mass Media Communication has minimal linkage, reaching a wide audience.
• Social Media helps to advance communication.

Supports of Communication

• Communication methods may encompass:
• Bulletin boards
• Emails
• Intranets
• Conversation
• Social Media sites

Communications Management Plan Components

• The plan for managing communications details project communications are scheduled and maintained. Key facts:
• Stakeholder/data requirements
• Languages needed
• Escalation procedures
• What to communicate
• What needs to be followed up on
• Who is in charge
• Authorization details
• Stakeholders information
• Tech/communications methods should be provided
• A budget and timeline
• Plan maintenance
• Glossary of terms
• Diagrams which show information flow

Management of communications

• The focus is to effectively manage, use, capture, distribute, and store the data between the correct members in a timely fashion.
• Identify aspects of effective communication, particularly tech and appropriate methods, and provide adaptable communication activities responsive to the changes of stakeholder needs.

Master Communications

• Satisfy team information requirements. Optimize information flow as defined in the plans.
• This process determines the plan from project implementation to expected results, as well as delivering the correct message. Surveys can determine a resolution.

Progress Reporting and Planning

• Progress reports can be made to the higher management, PMO, team, or other user.
• They can be long or short text reports.
• Reports can also be graphic, dashboards, exception reports, activity reports, status reports, or forecasts.

Report Content Recommendations

• Stakeholder evaluation needs minute details
• Improvisation should be avoided
• Formats should incorporate stakeholders.

Key Recommendations

• Communication is as important as the details
• Prepare your communications.
• Take care in all vertical and horizontal communications internally.