Chapter 9
Project Communication
Management
Mercy Maina
Introduction
• Project Communication: exchange of project-specific information
with the emphasis on creating understanding between the sender
and the receiver.
• Effective communication is one of the most important factors
contributing to the success of a project.
• Chacteristics
1) Utilizes Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for a framework,
2) It is customer focused,
3) It is limited in time,
4) It is product focused with the end in mind,
5) It involves all levels of the organization.
Importance & Types of
Communication
• Importance of Good Communications
1) The greatest threat to many projects is a failure to communicate.
2) Good communication keeps conflict and confusion from bogging your
project down by ensuring key players are aligned on project goals and
know exactly what's expected of them.
3) It also helps build team-wide trust so everyone works better together
from project start to finish
4) Strong verbal skills are a key factor in career advancement for IT
professionals.
• Types of Communication
Project Communication Mgt Activities/Processes
• Includes the activities required to ensure timely and appropriate generation,
collection, distribution, storage, retrieval and ultimate disposition of project
information.
• Responsibility of everyone on the project.
• Project manager, however, is responsible to develop the Project
Communication Management Plan
• The Activities includes;
1) Communications planning: Determining the information and
communications needs of the stakeholders.
2) Information distribution: Making needed information available to
project stakeholders in a timely manner.
3) Performance reporting: Collecting and disseminating performance
information, including status reports, progress measurement, and
forecasting.
4) Managing stakeholders: Managing communications to satisfy the needs
1. Communication Planning
• Involves developing the Project communication plan.- formal or informal
• Undertaking a stake holder analysis in the context of communication
requirements
Communications Management Plan Contents;
1) Stakeholder communications requirements.
2) Information to be communicated, including format, content, and level
of detail.
3) The people who will receive the information and who will produce it.
4) Suggested methods or technologies for conveying the information.
5) Frequency of communication; (daily, weekly, monthly etc)
6) Escalation procedures for resolving issues.
7) Revision procedures for updating the communications management
plan.
8) A glossary of common terminology.
2. Distribution of Project Communication
• Getting the right information to the right people at the right time and in a
useful format.
• Proper information distribution makes information available to project
stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Considerations made include:
1) Using technology to enhance information distribution.
2) Formal and informal methods for distributing information.
3) Understanding Group and Individual Communication Needs
4) Personal Preferences affect Communication Needs
5) Determining the Number of Communications Channels
• Good Practice
Don’t bury crucial information.
Don’t be afraid to report bad information.
Oral communication via meetings and informal talks helps bring important
information—good and bad—out into the open.
Distribution of Project Information (Conti…2
• Inputs
1) Work results: Wok results are the outcomes of the activities performed to
accomplish the project.
2) Communications management plan
3) Project plan
• Tools and Techniques
1) Communication skills:
2) Information retrieval systems:
3) Information distribution systems:
project meetings
hard copy documents
shared access to electronic databases
email
voicemail
• Output
1) Project records
3. Performance Reporting
• It involves collecting and disseminating project information, communicating project
progress, utilization of resources, and forecasting future progress and status to
various stakeholders, as decided in the communication management plan.
• Performance Report Types
1) Status Reports: This gives the current state of a project at any given time.
2) Progress Report: This type of report describes what has been accomplished
since the last time/last report.
3) Forecasting Report: This report states what is expected to happen on a
project, predicting future performance and expected status of the project in
various parameters.
4) Trend Report: This report shows a comparison between the current
performance of the project and the last performance of the project during the
same time duration.
5) Variance Report: This report shows a comparison between the planned
progress and actual progress made.
6) Earned Value report: This report integrates project performance on scope,
schedule, and cost measures using earned value management techniques.
Performance Reporting (Conti…..2)
• Inputs
1) Project Management Plan:
2) Work Performance Information (WPI):
3) Work Performance Measurement:
4) Organizational Process Assets:
• Tools & Techniques
1) Performance reviews:
2) Variance analysis:
3) Trend analysis:
4) Earned value analysis:
• Output
1) Performance reports:
2) Change requests
4. Managing Stakeholders
• Good Practice;
1) Identify the stakeholders early in the project and their levels of interest,
expectations, importance, and influence are analysed as this is critical to
project success.
2) The identified stakeholders are classified according to their interest,
influence, and involvement.
Managing Stakeholders Good Practice
(Conti…../2)
3). The important tools and techniques used are stakeholder analysis and
expert judgement.
4). Stakeholders analysis systematically analyses and gathers quantitative
and qualitative information, and determines whose interests should be
taken into account throughout the project.
5). Develop Communication Strategies
Determine the preferred method of communication:
Create a communication schedule: Managers should create
communication schedule so that they can stay engaged with
stakeholders throughout the project.
Managing Stakeholders (Conti…/3)
• Inputs
1) List of stakeholders preferences
2) Risk/Change Impact Analysis report
• Tools and Techniques
1) Expectations management matrix
2) Issue log
• Outputs
1) Stakeholder register;- contains details of identified stakeholders
2) Stakeholder management strategy;- defines the approach to increase
the support of stakeholders and minimize their negative impacts
throughout the entire project lifecycle
Managing Expectations & Changes Strategies
• Managing Expectations;
1) Define customer satisfaction
2) Discover the source of the expectations
3) Calibrate where you are
4) Create action plan
• Managing Changes
1) Identify the initiator
2) Define the desired outcome
3) Initiate the change control process
4) Discover the extent of the change
5) Assess the impact of the change
6) Develop an action plan
Project Communication Tools
Project team members use a variety of tools to organize and present
project information.
1) Project Fact Sheet: The project fact sheet contains summary data
2) Filing Systems: A filing system is a set of agreed-upon folder and file naming
conventions used to classify project documents to make them easier to find.
3) Work Breakdown Structure: The WBS is a deliverable-oriented grouping of
project elements that organizes and defines the total scope of the project.
4) Resource Breakdown Structure: The RBS is a standardized, hierarchical list of
roles that is used to produce a project deliverable.
5) Project Charter: The project charter documents the agreement between the
sponsor and the project manager over the key elements of a project and
component.
6) Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS): The OBS describes the
organization chart. It groups personnel into successively smaller units, each
reporting to a single manager or supervisor.
7) Performance Reporting:
Questions and Answer Session
End