Project Communication Management

Recall whether the following situations have occurred in your project: when checking the project results, the customer points out that a previously required product feature is not included in it, and complained that it had been verbally reported to members of the project team. The bad thing is that you have no idea about it as a project manager, and the member explained that he forgot it. Or, the programmer under you described the module architecture he was responsible for during the design review. However, after the software was developed, you found that this structure is quite different from what you understand ......

 

You may encounter more complex situations than mentioned above. Where is the problem? In fact, it is very simple, just two words-communication. The above problems are caused by communication, and incorrect communication channels lead to information not arriving at the destination. The "Heart and Soul" may be just a wonderful realm depicted in literature. In real life, cultural background, work background, and technical background can lead to great deviations in people's understanding of the same event.

Communication in projects cannot be ignored. One of the most important tasks of a project manager is communication. Usually, the time spent in this area should be 75% of the total work ~ 90%. Good communication can obtain enough information, discover potential problems, and control all aspects of the project.



Communication Management System



Generally, a complete communication management system should include the following aspects: communication plan preparation, information distribution, performance report and management ending. The Communication Plan determines the information communication requirements of stakeholders: Who needs the information, when the information is needed, and how to obtain it. Information Publishing allows the required information to be sent to the stakeholders in a timely manner. Performance reports collect and disseminate execution information, including status reports, progress reports, and forecasts. After the project or project stage reaches the goal or ends for some reason, it is necessary to close the project and manage the formation of the project result document, this includes project record collection, guarantee of compliance with final specifications, analysis of project results (successes or lessons), and archiving of such information for future use ).

A project communication plan is part of the overall project plan. It plays an important role and is often overlooked. Many projects do not have a complete communication plan, which leads to great confusion. Some projects are still effective, but they depend entirely on the customer relationship or previous project experience, or the personal competence of the Project Manager. However, strictly speaking, an efficient system should not only exist in the brain, nor should it rely solely on verbal communication. It is necessary to implement it into the standardized planning. Therefore, the communication plan should also be included in the initial stage of the project.

Imagine what should you do first when you are appointed to replace a project manager? Hold project team meetings, meet with customers, check project progress ...... No. The first thing you need to do is to check the Communication Plan of the entire project, the communication plan describes the collection and archiving structure of project information, the publishing Method of Information, the content of information, the progress plan generated by each type of communication, and the agreed communication methods. Only by understanding these issues can we grasp the communication and be familiar with other project situations.

When preparing a project communication plan, the most important thing is to understand the organizational structure and analyze the stakeholders of the project. The organizational structure of the project manager usually has a great impact on the communication requirements. For example, if the Organization requires the project manager to periodically report progress to the Project Management Department, the communication plan must include this one. Project stakeholders are affected by project success or failure. Therefore, their needs must be considered. The most typical and important stakeholders are the customers, and the project team members, project managers, and their superiors are also important stakeholders. All the information required by these personnel, whether the information required at each stage is different, and whether there are any preferences in the way information is transmitted. For example, some customers want to submit progress reports every week, some customers want to communicate by phone in addition to weekly reports, and some customers want to regularly check the project results. All kinds of situations should be taken into account, the analysis results should be reflected in the Communication Plan and meet the information requirements of different personnel, so that the established communication system will be comprehensive and effective.

Language, text, or "image"



There are a variety of communication forms in the project, usually written and verbal. Written communications are generally used in the following situations: internal memos used by the project team, or reporting to customers and non-company members, such as formal project reports, annual reports, informal personal records, and incident reports. Most of the written communication is used for activities such as notification, confirmation, and requirements. It is generally as concise as possible to describe things clearly, so as to avoid increasing the burden and flowing in the form. Oral Communication includes meetings, reviews, private contacts, and free discussions. This method is simple and effective, and is easier to be accepted by most people, but it does not apply to communications like confirmation, because it is not recorded in the form of "black and white" in writing. In the oral communication process, we should be frank and clear, so as to avoid differences in understanding caused by factors such as cultural background, ethnic differences, and word expression. This requires special attention. The communication between the two parties must not take it for granted or vague, and the content that they do not understand must be expressed for further explanation by the other party until a consensus is reached. In addition to the two methods, there is also a complementary method. Recall that in addition to describing an action in a language, a PE Instructor also uses a standard posture to teach you how to do exercises. This is a typical form language expression. Gestures, graphical presentations, and video conferences can all be used as supplementary methods. Its advantage is that it is easy to understand by visually passing information to the recipient, instead of being boring in verbal expression.



Two key principles



In the project, many people also know how to communicate, but the effect is not obvious, it seems that it is always not in place, the problems caused by this also emerge one after another. In fact, there are many key points and principles to achieve effective communication. Early communication and active communication are two of them. Practice has proved that they are critical.

Once upon a time, I met a project manager who checked the work of team members and found that the progress was much slower than I thought when the construction period was approaching. In the future, my work would naturally be quite passive. Early communication requires the project manager to be proactive and establish regular communication with the project members. This not only makes it easy to discover existing problems, but also exposes many potential problems. It is not terrible to have problems in the project. What is terrible is that the problems have not been discovered. The later the communication, the later the exposure, the greater the loss.

Communication is a way of communication between people. In the end, active communication is an attitude towards communication. In the project, we strongly advocate active communication, especially when it is clear that communication is necessary. When a project manager is a user, a superior, or a team member is a project manager, active communication not only establishes close contact, but also shows that you attach importance to and participate in the project, this will greatly improve the satisfaction of the other party, which is very beneficial to the entire project.



Smooth communication channels



The communication seems simple and complex. This complexity is manifested in many aspects. For example, when the number of people who communicate increases, communication channels increase dramatically, making communication difficult. A typical problem is "filtering", that is, information loss. There are many reasons for filtering, such as language, culture, semantics, knowledge, information content, ethics, reputation, rights, and organizational status, we often encounter different understandings of a problem in the communication process due to different working backgrounds.

If in-depth analysis and communication are involved, a model can be used for representation:

From the communication model, we can see that if we want to ensure smooth communication to the maximum extent, we should try our best to avoid all kinds of interference when information is transmitted in the media, so that information remains in the original state during transmission. After the information is sent and received, both parties must check and provide feedback on the understanding to ensure the correctness of the communication.

If the project is combined, the project manager should clarify the communication channels recognized by both parties in the Communication Management Plan, for example, communicating with users through formal reports, communicate with project members by email; establish a communication and feedback mechanism, ensure that any communication is in place, without any deviations, and regularly check the project communication and make adjustments. In this way, smooth and effective communication is no longer a problem.