PLANNING STAGE (COMMUNICATION) : PLAN COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT

As defined from the previous post, Plan Communications Management is the process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communications based on the stakeholders’ information needs and requirements, as well as available organizational assets.

The inputs to refer are:

• Stakeholder register which lists all the stakeholders with their detailed information including communication requirements
• Enterprise Environmental Factors which explain all the internal and external environments that may influence communications such as structure of organization, culture (in which there is so called language), technology, medias etc
• Organizational Process Assets whereby policy, guidelines and regulations explain how information is communicated, including lessons learnt and historical information from the previous similar projects regarding this process.

The process can be done by doing:

• Communication Requirement Analysis – This is a technique whereby the information needs and requirements of the stakeholders regarding communications are analysed. It helps you to determine number of channels to be used according to the number of stakeholders present in that particular project, the type and format of information needed by them and also if there is a need to add project resources only for communicating those information in order to avoid failure and contribute success to the project outcome.
• For the case of knowing the number of communications channels, use the following formula C = n * (n-1)/2 where by n stands for number of stakeholders involved in the project and C stands for number of Communications channels.

           Simple example, if the project has two stakeholders, then

• Number of communications channels C = 2 * (2-1)/2 = 1 Communications channel. It means that the two stakeholders can communicate through the use of one channel

           Another example, if the project has four stakeholders, then

• Number of communications channels C = 4 * (4-1)/2 = 6 Communications channel. It means that four stakeholders can communicate through the use of six channels

• Communication Technology – These are the methods used to transfer the information among project stakeholders. The methods can be via emails, meetings, video conferences, written documents, SMS etc. The choice of which method is better than the other will depend on the following factors:
• Urgency of the need for information depending on nature of the project, the stage of the project (phase), the format, urgency and frequency of that particular information to be communicated to the stakeholders. Some projects may need the information weekly, monthly or end of each phase/stage; some may need them in form of power-point or word format; and some may need in a very short notice.
• Availability of the technology to facilitate the communications throughout the project life cycle. The technology should be accessible, available and well familiar to all stakeholders. For instance, some of the interior areas in Tanzania, project stakeholders may use only Halotel and not Tigo network for communications.
• Ease of Use for the stakeholders to fit their suitability. Let us say you select Onenote or Asana technology for communications while some of the stakeholders are not familiar with those applications. If that is the case, it will be better to provide an appropriate training for them.
• Project Environment to determine how the project stakeholders will interact each other. Is it face-to-face or virtually like video conferencing?, are they in the same or different time zones may be one in Tanzania and another in USA?, are they going to use multiple languages like some use both English and French?, are there any factors that may affect communications for instance if the words used for communications are not clear to some of the stakeholders because of its complexity or high level vocabulary or mummering  or slang or presence of noise etc.
• Sensitivity and Confidentiality of the Communication to determine the measures that need to be taken care of including the appropriate way of communicating those information. This is because not all the information can be circulated to all stakeholders. For instance, you can not circulate the financial loss of the company to the customers, it will always remain internally.

• Communication Model – which shows how the information is exchanged from one stakeholder to another. The communication model involves the sender, transmission medium (channel) accompanied with noise and receiver. It follows the following steps:
• Encode: Thoughts are translated into language (information) by the sender
• Transmit message: The sender transmits the information to the receiver through communication channel or medium and it may be affected by noise such as the distance, unfamiliar technology, cultural difference, lack of background information, poor infrastructure etc.
• Decode: The receiver translates the information into thoughts
• Acknowledge: While receiving the information, the receiver may also show acknowledge sign of receipt
• Feedback/response: After understanding the information, the receiver  encodes again and transmit back to the sender

Important note:

• The sent information must be clear, complete and well understandable
• The received information must be understood correctly, not misinterpreted and responded appropriately.

• Communication Methods – There are three methods to share the information among stakeholders
• Interactive Communication whereby the information is multi-directional exchanged by the stakeholders to ensure a common understanding of the topics such as meetings, phone calls, SMS, conferencing etc
• Push Communication whereby the information is sent to the specific stakeholders who need the information but does not ensure if the information was received or clearly understood by them such as letters, emails, reports, faxes etc
• Pull Communication whereby the information is used by massive audience according to their own needs (free will) such as e-learning, intranet, lessons learnt applications etc.

Note that:

The communication methods should be discussed and agreed by the stakeholders based on their requirements, familiarity, cost and time constraints, tools and resources that are applicable.

• Meeting – The project stakeholders can discuss and reach into mutual agreement on the appropriate way of communicating the project information. The meeting can be face – to – face or online if they are located in multiple directions.

The output of this process is called Communications Management Plan which explains how the project communication is planned, structured, monitored and controlled. It will contain the following information to be mentioned as few:

• Stakeholder communication requirements
• Information to be communicated includes format, language, content and level of details
• Reasons for distributing that information
• Time frame and frequency for the distribution
• Person responsible for communicating the information
• Person responsible for authorizing release of the confidential information
• Person or group responsible for receiving the information
• Methods or technologies used for distributing information
• Resource allocation
• Communication constraints etc

References:

PMI (2013). A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide 5^th Ed.) USA, Project Management Institute

https://www.udemy.com/project-communication-management-pmp-exam-pmbok/

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/effective-communication-better-project-management-6480

Thank you and please don't hesitate to ask, suggest or comment below.

HAVE A BLISSFUL DAY.