Communication Management

Topics included in Schedule Management:

- Plan communication management
- Manage communications
- Monitor communications
- Useful external web-links

Other related sections of the PMKI:

- TBA.
 
 

Temporary Subject List - this page is being rebuilt:

• Communication Management: The processes involved in generating, disseminating, receiving, storing and the ultimate disposition of project information:  
  For a general discussion on Communication visit our Blog: http://mosaicprojects.wordpress.com/category/stakeholder-management/communication
  
• Communication management  books by Dr. Lynda Bourne
• Making Projects Work: Effective Stakeholder and Communication Management
• Advising Upwards: A Framework for Understanding and Engaging Senior Management  
  
• Communication theory and practice: Including skills. 
• WP: Communication Theory.  To make communication effective, careful thought has to be given to the choice of media and message, how the message will be delivered (and who will deliver it) and the best writing, or presentation style to use based on the personality of the person you wish to communicate with. This paper provides the framework for effective communication.   
• Art: PMI The High Cost of Low Performance - The Essential Role of Communication. (PMI Pulse of the Profession Publication) The essential role of communications.  
• Art: The three types of stakeholder communication.  There are three general classes of communication that are needed in an effective stakeholder management: Traditional reporting; Project relations (PR - marketing); and Directed communication focused on achieving an effect. This paper explains how they work together for effective stakeholder communication.  
• WP: Active Listening and Effective Questions. Listening is a conscious activity which requires attention. The right types of question support effective listening and can influence conversations and decisions. These two skills in combination are very powerful.  
• PP: Getting the 'soft stuff' right - Effective communication is the key to successful project outcomes! Effective communication with senior management is an on-going collegiate effort by all project practitioners within the organisation; designed to inform, educate and influence senior managers so that ‘sensible’ project decisions become the norm.   
• PP: Achieving a Successful Engagement. (managing key stakeholder's expectations) Projects will only be considered successful when their key stakeholders acknowledge they are a success.  This requires the project team to effectively engage with each of its key stakeholders to understand and manage their expectations and then deliver to project to meet or exceed the ‘managed expectations’.    
• PP: Advising upwards: managing the perceptions and expectations of senior management stakeholders. The experiences of the authors, in large organisations, in managing the expectations and the support of key senior stakeholders provides a foundation for exploration of the tasks needed to turn a Commander into a Sponsor, how to use the resources available in the form of influence networks, targeted communication and plain persistence. Results are not miraculous, small improvements must be celebrated, the possibility of failure contemplated.   
• PP: Understanding Design - The challenge of informed consent. The need to communicate effectively is a vital component of leadership. You cannot lead people if they don’t understand you; ‘blind trust’ only works if the solution is straightforward. When problems arise, uninformed trust evaporates; whereas informed consent from committed followers is more enduring, and people are likely to support any efforts to work through to a solution to the problem.    
• Art: Have we communicated?  “The major problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred”. This paper looks at some of the problems in communication.   
• Art: Data to Wisdom – Creating and Managing Knowledge. The processes and documents used to transform raw data into the knowledge needed for wise decisions from a project controls perspective.      
• Art: Stop the world I want to get off  Far too many good ideas are hidden in a fog of academic prose, technical jargon and/or dense, complex writing as this light hearted paper demonstrates.    
  
• Art: Stakeholder’s Don’t Understand Numbers!.  Project controls processes and project reports are full of numbers and calculations and one would think that most project stakeholders, particularly senior managers, would see and understand the numbers in the same way. Unfortunately resent research suggests this is not the case.  
  
• Reporting and communicating for effect:  
• PP: Beyond Reporting - The Communication Strategy. Reporting and communicating are not the same! At the very least, for a communication to be complete, the sender needs to know the message has been received and understood.  
• PP: Controls Communicate? Data in a control tool is useless until it is communicated in the right way to the right people to help manage the project.    
• Prs: Communication ≠ Engagement  Social media and web technologies have made broadcast communication in the 21st century easier then ever, but communication does not equal engagement! This paper demonstrates the importance of senior stakeholder engagement for project success and then suggest practical options to achieve this.           
• WP: Writing Documentation. Effective writing is a key communication medium for all aspects of project management. This paper outlines several universal rules for effective business writing.   
• WP: Page Layout & Design. The concept of layout design is separate from content design. Good document design will not overcome badly written content; but a poorly designed document will significantly reduce your reader’s comprehension of the message you are trying to convey.  
• WP: Presentation Skills. Public speaking is one of the hardest things to master. This paper covers the preparation and presentation of information in a public forum including creating and using effective PowerPoint slides.  
• WP: Effective Explanations. Explanation is a key communication skill for making ideas, products, and services easier to understand.  
• Blg: What is your personal brand? If you want a stakeholder to ‘buy into’ your ideas, believe your communication or take action on your recommendations they need to recognise you as a credible messenger, how they perceive you is framed by your 'personal brand'.  
• Prs: Communication in organisations: making the schedule effective. The schedule is a communication medium that can have a powerful influence on the successful delivery of a project, provided the information it contains is understood and used.  With effective communication, the schedule can encourage the engagement of stakeholders, assist in minimising risks and highlight issues.  
• Art: What’s the message??  The way schedule reports are designed can change the understanding of key stakeholders.  
• Prs: Communications Control? This paper explores how communication in the form of information exchange controls and assists the work of organisations to create value and drive performance,.   
• Art: ‘Not knowing’ is no longer an option.  Effective governance and management requires timely access to ACCURATE information.
• Blg: Advising Upwards for Effect. The project team need to be able to effectively ‘advise upwards’ so their executive managers understand the potential value that can be generated from the project and work to ensure the organisation makes effective use of the project’s deliverables.   
• Art: Communicating Upwards for Effect.  The key to effective communication is clarity created through simplicity. But frequently people use the same words in similar context but apply completely different meanings. We say something; they attribute their different meaning and know they have understood exactly what we’ve said – but their understanding is not what we meant!   
• Art: Influence without authority. How to build credibility and acquire the ‘currency’ you need to trade for the support and help you require.  
• Art: How to influence others. Ways to use the meeting environment, questions and body language to positively influence others.     
• Blg: The role of Oration in Communication – a lost art? You need to apply a completely different set of skills and re-structure the information in a well written document if you want to communicate the same message verbally, this is the art of ‘oration’..  
• Art: Is what you heard what I meant? Effective communication between project stakeholders is always difficult and misunderstanding and confusion are easily created if information is not structured sensibly.  
• Art: Communicating with Purpose There is absolutely no point in communicating with someone if you do not want an effect! The effect you are seeking can vary dramatically, but you need to know what it is!     
• Art: Targeted communication - The key to effective stakeholder engagement. Designing a 'directed communication' strategy for your project.  
• Blg: Integrity is the key to delivering bad news successfully. Integrity is the result of a combination of virtues. You have to earn a reputation for integrity based on what you are, and more importantly what you are known for by the people you have to deliver the bad news to..   
• Blg: Effective Communication = Effective Project Stakeholder Management.The project’s stakeholder engagement and communication planning needs to develop an overall strategy for these two closely linked processes and then identify appropriate tactics to maximise the probability of achieving a successful project outcome.   
• Blg: Mind your language - A picture may tell a 1000 words, but it need to be a well designed picture if the message is to be meaningful. 
• Blg: Rhetoric can backfire. The art of effective persuasion and explanation is to enliven a well constructed argument by the appropriate use of rhetoric to engage with your audience and help them understand and agree with the position you are putting. However, if you base your whole position on the clever use of rhetorical constructs expect the backfire as soon as someone finds the weak point in your position and ‘pulls the pin’.   
• Art: There are no free steak knives! Sales is a communication process, but the way offers are framed can be designed to distort buying decisions - beware of 'free offers'.
• Art: Project Reports and the PMBOK.  The PMBOK® Guide 5th Edition included a significant refinement in the way project data is transformed into useful project reports.  The flow from raw data to useful reports (processed information) is fairly well defined; these concepts are expanded in the 6th Edition.   
• Art: NEWSPEAK - is not all that new!. A 'left field' at communication and the use of language to influence thinking based on George Orewell's novel 1984.      
  
• Communication tools and systems:  Processes to gather and communicate information.
• Art: Communication planning. Communication planning is an essential element in crafting a communication strategy that will work to support the success of the project.   
• WP: Managing Meetings. To make meetings effective, careful thought has to be given to the choice agenda, attendees and the specific purpose of each meeting.  
• Art: Wiser Group Decision Making. If ‘two heads are better than one’ why do so many committees make bad decisions? this article suggests some practical solutions.     
• Blg: Meeting Management - strategy and tactics. If your job involves arranging meetings then you need to get both your strategy and your tactics right to create a short, effective, useful and enjoyable experience for everyone!   
• WP: Facilitation. Facilitation is the effective deployment of the processes and tasks needed to run a productive and impartial meeting.  
• Blg: Are you a workshop leader or facilitator?.  Four different approaches to facilitating or leading a workshop depending on its purpose.      
• WP: Data Gathering & Brainstorming. The process needed to prepare for and then collect the data needed to facilitate project decision making, including brain storming.  
• Art: Ask for information you can use   If you are not careful, the easy to measure drives out the harder to quantify, even when the latter is more important.  
  

Useful external web-links

• External Link - to be added
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