Why have a project communication plan?
If you are a new project manager, or perhaps part of a project team, you might ask why have a project communication plan?
This post sets out to answer this question.
One of the reasons often given for project failure has been a lack of communication. Lack of communication on projects is essentially a problem of people rather than a technical problem. Often on projects, important documents fail to be sent to the appropriate stakeholders, or status reports are infrequent and/or inadequate. These things often occur because a lack of project communication planning and communication management.
As a project manager, when planning a project, one thing you will do is perform stakeholder analysis to identify the people affected by your project. You will also identify a project team. All of these people will need to be included in your project communication plan.
Your project communication plan should include a communication matrix which essentially describes what information is required by whom and by what date or frequency. It also should include what information is produced by whom and by what date or frequency.
A simple communication matrix should contain the names of all of the project stakeholders and project team members in the first column. The next column should describe what information is required by that person. For example project status might be required by the project sponsor. The next column will describe which person will produce this information e.g. project manager. The frequency of delivery should appear in the following column e.g. monthly. The next column should contain the method of delivery. For example, this might be a verbal report at an executive meeting or a written report. If there is any format the information needs to be put into, then this should appear next – e.g. the standard report template. The next columns should describe the start and end dates of this communication e.g. project start date and project end date. Finally any comments can be included in the last column.
This communication matrix will then guide the project manager for the remainder of the project about what communication is required by whom, by when etc.
A second aspect to communication planning is working out how conflicts on the project will be resolved. People often have conflict when working with others, and sometimes one group gets into conflict with other groups. So, any project communication plan should also provide guidelines for resolving conflicts.
As a project manager, you should share your project communication plan with the team from the beginning. You can ensure everyone knows the frequency of reporting and meetings, details of report templates, and details of how conflicts between teams and their members will be resolved by sharing the project communication plan with the project team at a project kick off meeting.
In summary, project communication planning is one of the project management best practices. It is essential if stakeholders and project team members are to effectively communicate together about project status. Without such a plan, there is every likelihood the project will fail through lack of communication.
You can learn more about project communication planning and can learn how to write a project communication plan by attending the one day introduction to project management course in London, UK.
