Project Communication Management

Project Communication Management

Communication is a very important part in every aspect of life. If it is not effective, then the total objective gets affected. You must know how to convey the message to get things done. Every talk must make sense and should be to the point. Especially a bad information exchange within the team will lead to project failure.

To prevent this it is critical to manage all the communications that happen during any project work. In PMBOK this is one of the 10 principles or the key knowledge areas. Enroll today for the PMP certification online that discusses this area in detail. 

According to the PMBOK, there are 3 Project communication management processes namely

1. Planning - In this step, you make a plan on how to manage the discussion across all the stakeholders. This is done by creating an effective management plan which can be done as given below. 

Audience - This is nothing but all the stakeholders in the project who influences or even impacts the projects such as project sponsors, project team, management, and customers.

Objective - There is a variety of talks that can take place those are status report, awareness, customer feedback, progress update, etc.

Message - What is the message that you want to deliver to the stakeholders, such as discussing the budget, risks, scope, objectives, schedule, and deliverables, etc.

Channel - This is most important to plan whether the communication is through weekly or daily meetings, or chat or email, etc.

The plan must be detailed and must involve the stakeholders also and must specify what will be sent, to whom, how, when, and who is responsible, etc. Ensure that the discussions are balanced and do not have over information or under information which leads to issues. We recommend you to register for the PMP course online at StarAgile to know more about communication management. 

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2. Managing - Once the plan is made then comes the managing part. The communication plan needs to be revised, modified according to the needs, and updated on the regular basis. The project manager is responsible for the management and execution of the communication, that includes the following,

• Creation, collection, and analysis of the data

• Distribution or transmission of communication in various format

• Storage and archival 

• Retrieval of any archived or stored communication

• Disposal of any unwanted talks

3. Monitoring – This is also is important and is sometimes also called controlling of the communication. This includes,

• Ensuring that the communication was sent as planned

• Ensuring that the communication sent was well received by the stakeholders

• Ensuring that the messages were understood as actual

• Ensuring the feedback of the communication was sent back by the stakeholders.

Also Read: Project Manager Qualification

Project Communication Management Plan

We will discuss how to make a project communication plan and what are the steps to accomplish this.

a) Types - As you know there are three types of communication choose the one that fits the need in this communication that you are going to use. Whether it is oral, written or expressions need to be decided first.

b) Choose the format - The next step in the communication plan is to choose the formal such as medium for the communication such as email or reports or presentations or meetings or awareness or debrief or informal types. You need to choose the appropriate medium that is most effective in communicating the required messages to the right stakeholders at the right time. You need to ensure that the format that you select provides the best possible messages and is understood well and thoroughly by the stakeholders.

c) Goal - Once you select the required format for the communication you need to ensure that the communication goals are set before you communicate. The goals have to be clear and concise and need to be written down in the communication plan to ensure that the right message is passed on to the stakeholders and hence understood as per the requirement of the plan.

d) Identification of Stakeholders - You need to ensure that you identify first whom are you going to communicate to, it may be the project sponsor or project owner or project team members or top management, or even the customer. This helps in clearly drafting the communication that is understood by the right stakeholders.

e) Identify the methods - Here you need to identify whether you want the digital format or telephonic or paper-based communication. This is required as not everybody will be interested in email or smartphone or paper-based communication, different people prefer different methods of communication.

f) Frequency - Here you need to decide how many times are you communicating on an hourly basis or weekly basis or daily basis or monthly basis or yearly basis. This is important as not all communication goes by the same frequency of the communication.

g) Responsibilities - You need to decide on who will communicate what to whom. This needs to be written in the communication plan. Of course, most of the communications come from the project manager but not all communication comes from the project manager. It may be any team lead, or any team members or project sponsor or even the customer engagement manager, etc.

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Different Types of Communication in Project Management

A project manager is an important person who is responsible for effective communication and he has to possess different skills for effective communication such as,

• Active and strong listening

• Fluency in speaking

• Proficient in writing

• Enhance the performance of the team by active mentoring

• Able to question the facts and exploring new ideas

• Motivating the team by keeping them engaged

• Managing expectations of the stakeholders by establishing their facts in the area of the subject

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Along with the above parameters for effective communication, the project manager must have the 5 C's of communication such as Clear, Correct, Coherent, Concise, and Controlled.

In this subheading, we will also discuss the various types of project communications they are as follows,

1. Oral Communication - This type of communication is done when there is personal connecting, in the meeting or through the telephone or cell phones, etc. This can again be divided into two types they are as follows,

• Oral Formal such as speeches, negotiations, and presentations, etc

• Informal such as meeting rooms, war rooms, with the team members or through project meetings, etc.

2. Written communication - This is the communication that requires formal medium such as papers, electronic chat or email, etc. This again can be divided into 2 types such as,

• Written formal such as Memos, project charter, WBS, complex issues, Project status, scope statement, and contractual documents, etc.

• Written Informal such as mail, letters, email, chat, SMS, notes, and any form of written communication through the medium to the team members.

3. Expressions - These are the informal way of communication using bodily expressions such as hand movements, facial expressions, body language and tone of voice, etc. Around 60% of the communication takes place in this manner. Nowadays these expressions have digital forms in the form of emojis in the smartphone or chat or email etc. 

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Conclusion - Enroll today to know about Communication management in project management with real-time experience 

Communication management is one of the 10 areas of PMP. StarAgile provides a PMP certification course online that is recognized by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Register for the PMP online training to get the project management certification that has communication management as one of the topics.