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Project Communication Plan - How to prepare for it?
To ensure that the Communication Plan will work, follow these three steps:
1) Identify and list all project stakeholders. Do this literally: list them in Excel worksheet with their names and positions. This task can be daunting on bigger projects but it is essential to identify all stakeholders and group them into groups of interest and level of influence. These people, who are most influential and have the most interest in your project (its success or failure), should be best informed and actively involved in the project.
2) Determine what project stakeholders need to know and when. That is why project stakeholders should be grouped and the information needs of the groups must be assessed.
3) Plan how to fulfil the information requirements. Using various communication media, plan how you want to meet the information requirements of each stakeholder group.
Not everything can be communicated in one go using accidentally chosen media. That is why all announcements and information from the project need to be well planned, produced and transmitted according to a wider approach and strategy to project communication.
2) Determine what project stakeholders need to know and when. That is why project stakeholders should be grouped and the information needs of the groups must be assessed.
3) Plan how to fulfil the information requirements. Using various communication media, plan how you want to meet the information requirements of each stakeholder group.
Not everything can be communicated in one go using accidentally chosen media. That is why all announcements and information from the project need to be well planned, produced and transmitted according to a wider approach and strategy to project communication.
Objectives of the communication plan are as follows:
1. Explain the reasoning and justification for starting the project
2. Create common awareness among project stakeholders and gain their understanding for the project mission, progress status and impact on their function
3. Inform about the expected benefits of a successful project delivery on the business
4. Support the parallel process of change management
5. Ensure that the employees involved or impacted by the project know their role in this change process
6. Obtain shared understanding for the transformation process and resulting participation in shaping it
2. Create common awareness among project stakeholders and gain their understanding for the project mission, progress status and impact on their function
3. Inform about the expected benefits of a successful project delivery on the business
4. Support the parallel process of change management
5. Ensure that the employees involved or impacted by the project know their role in this change process
6. Obtain shared understanding for the transformation process and resulting participation in shaping it
General principles for project communication
The goal for having the communication process under control is to minimise speculation and uncertainty among those who are involved or impacted by the project.
There are a few principles that help to make this process effective:
* Pre-prepared messages should be shared with the organisation only according to the plan (avoid chaos and over-informing)
* The content of messages should be simple to read and be focused on decisions and facts
* The messages must be honest and have clearly legible intentions of the writer
* Good and bad news for project stakeholders should balanced
* It is better to produce more shorter and simpler messages than fewer but more complex
* The content of messages should be simple to read and be focused on decisions and facts
* The messages must be honest and have clearly legible intentions of the writer
* Good and bad news for project stakeholders should balanced
* It is better to produce more shorter and simpler messages than fewer but more complex
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More about project management and communication can be found on: PMAdept.net
Comment
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Comment by Bruce Benson on September 7, 2010 at 3:46pm -
The communications plan is in my experience one of the least utilized techniques. Maybe by calling it a plan we don't understand its impact and create one often to just show "we have a plan."
I will take issue with the notion of "over-informing." While I believe this is possible, I've seen many more cases of under-informing than over-informing.
I like to tell my managers that I should never hear someone saying "but, we didn't know."
The other criteria I push is the notion that there should be "someplace" anyone can go and by going there (such as subscribing to a news feed, checking a website, attending a certain regular meeting, etc.) they will always know everything they need to know about the project and on a timely basis.
Nice summary
Bruce
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