COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT

The biggest cause of failure in projects is said to be associated with poor communication. As a project Manager, it is your responsibility to keep all the stakeholders at a common ground through efficient communication. Incositencies cause loopholes which further strain networks of communication. The section below attempts to cover all the important areas of communication.

Determining Rules at the beginning

The creation of the communication plan is one of the initial steps in project planning. Unless a set of rules has not been defined for communication a project should not start.

Making Decisions-

Some questions to be answereed are:

Who will make the decisions?
How the decisions will be made?

The various roles should be clearly defined whether it is pertaining to internal project team or the steering committee.

Project Managers should have the sole authority to make the project and process related decisions as long as the project goal is unaltered.

Researchers suggest that the protocols of decision making should be be highly associated with trust (Luecke, Press, and Review, 2004). Some decision making approaches are:

1. Majority Rule - Based on a voting mechanism, the decison of the majority is considered.

2. Consensus- Each member of team must agree with the decision taken.

3. Small group decides with relevant skills and experience.

4. Leader decides with input from all team members

Tracking Issues:

An issue register or a tracking log should be maintained from the initiation stage of the project (Luecke, Press, and Review, 2004). This will ensure that :

Unresolved issues are not lost.
A Timely resolution of the issue is planned.

Documenting Decisions and action:

Randomly conducting meetings and not tracking all the decisions and actions taken in the meetings is a part that leads to comminication issues. The solution is:

1. Minutes:

This would mainly contain

Agenda
Attendees
Decisons taken
Action items

2. Progress Reports:

This would be used to track the actual project progress and help in bringing all the stakeholders on the same plane. This would mainly contain:

Current status
Key issues
Key decisions
Budget status
Implications
Next steps

A communication plan thus contains the protocols that would be used throughout the project to communicate. It sets protocols for:

Meetings
Attendance policies
Meeting Technology

A guide to effective meetings

Make sure the meetings are important.
Clarify the agenda before hand.
Involve the right people and ensure they are prepared.
During the meeting, let everyone have a say but keep the discussion from wandering.
End the meeting with confirmation and action plan.
After the meeting conduct followup with a quick memo. Also send out the minutes.

PROJECT MANAGER ESSENTIALS