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It is believed that in projects, the project manager spends more than 90% of his time communicating. Communicating with his team members, suppliers, consultants, clients, management, and any other stakeholder who is involved in the project.
For Project Effective Communication, there is a four-step process that must be followed by the project manager and his team members.
1. Identify the requirements of communication
In this step, the project manager along with his team members, works together to identify who wants what information, that is, we should determine the requirements for successful communications so that a proper plan can be set in place for achieving them. The team should determine the number of channels involved in the project through the use of the formula:
n= N(N-1)/2.
Where:
n is the number of communication channels
N = number of identified stakeholders
It is important to note that different stakeholders will require different types of information, depending on their interest and their priority in the set project. So here, a priority matrix is essential to be arranged in order to prioritize the stakeholders.
By that, the project manager can complete the analysis of the identified stakeholders to determine what information they actually need, as well as how often the information is needed. The project manager and the project team can identify the demand for communications utilizing the below various parameters:
- Organization charts
- The project structure within the performing organization
- Stakeholder responsibility relationships
- Departments and disciplines involved within the project discipline
- The number of individuals involved in the project and their locales
- Internal and external information needs, along with
- Other relevant Stakeholder information
2. Identify the 5 W’s and 1H for project effective communication
Who needs to be communicated to? This is based on the communication formula and needs to be determined.
What needs to be communicated? All information related to the project need not be communicated to everyone in the team.
When it should be communicated. The timeline of communication should be monitored.
Where should it be communicated? If the team involves many people, then individual-level and team-level communications need to be resolved.
Why communication of information is essential and to what level is important? Why is it not encouraged as it is blame rather than change?
How the communication needs to be done. Is it conducted via e-mail, phone, or a presentation done to the team members?
3. Identify and accommodate the Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs)
Much of the communications management processes are linked to the enterprise environmental factors EEFs which could be internal and external to the organization.
Enterprise environmental factors that affect project communications can be the following:
- Organizational Culture and Structure
- Standards and regulations the project must comply with
- The logistics and the organizational infrastructure
- The human resources the project will rely on and interact with
- The policies and procedures for personnel administration
- The project’s work authorization system
- The marketplace conditions
- Stakeholder risk tolerances
- Commercial databases that the project may use for estimating, along with
- Project management information system.
These enterprise factors should be identified and reviewed and the project manager along with his team members should align the project initiatives considering all of these different factors.
4. Identify the Organization Process Assets (OPAs)
The organizational process assets affect how the project manager, project team, and stakeholders will communicate within a project. The primary organizational process assets that affect communication include the following:
- Standards and policies unique to the organization
- Organizational guidelines, work instructions, and performance measurement criteria
- Organizational communication requirements for all projects considering required and approved technology, security issues, archiving, and allowed communication media
- Project closure requirements
- Financial controls and procedures
- Issue and defect management procedures for all projects
- Change control procedures
- Risk control procedures
- Work authorization systems
- Process measurement database
- Project file structure, organization, and retention
- Historical information and lessons learned requirements
- Issue and defect management databases
- Configuration management databases, along with
- Project financial databases detailing labor hours, costs, budget issues, and cost overruns
These process assets may be unique for each organization, but if they are well reviewed before the initiation of the project and adequately reflected in the communication to the team, then there will never be a problem throughout the project.
