A Lesson In The Salient Features Of An Effective Project Communication Management Plan

Efficient project communication is an essential requirement for companies to effectively commence and complete both their day-to-day operations and long- and short-term projects. Therefore, it is needless to emphasize the importance of effective communications, both among the various teams and between project leaders and the executive management and shareholders because of it.

An effective project management communication plan lays out how vital information will be communicated to stakeholders and team members throughout a project. This plan also determines who will be receiving what update, how those people will receive those updates, who to turn to with certain updates, and when they will receive them. Additionally, it also lays out how often everyone should expect to be updated and how they will be updated.

Features of Project Communications Management

Project communications management allows project managers to send the right messages to the appropriate personnel in the most effective way. These communications are the glue that connects project stakeholders. The concerned project managers follow a communications management process — from project planning through project closeout — allowing them to develop and execute communication plans that identify who should receive overall project information and the role-specific communications that enable them to contribute effectively to the team.

A Communication Plan Plays a Vital Role in Every Project By:

• Enabling complete transparency throughout the project
• Creating the guidelines every team member can turn to at any time
• Getting everyone to take ownership of their roles
• Encouraging the sharing of feedback to increase productivity and avoid making the same mistakes
• Setting expectations for each task, no matter how minor they may seem

Here are a Few of the Benefits of an Effective Project Communication Plan:

• Clarity from the beginning: Being clear, vocal, and receptive establishes your leadership and sets your expectations when planning for communications from the start of a project. Building upon these previous successes starts with a template, then customization of the plan for your project, and finally reviewing it with your team.
• Running of meetings: A solid project communication plan safeguards meetings from meandering by establishing guidelines on who will meet with whom, when, and why. This helps keep meetings on time and gets the participants back to the project sooner. Therefore, establishing clear meeting guidelines helps you focus your resources.
• Mitigating risks: Absolutely, nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Therefore, reviewing your schedule for any potential problems and creating contingency plans for addressing them helps you respond quickly if an obstacle arises, such as late-stage scope changes. Therefore, a risk management strategy revises your project communication plan to maximize efficiency in any situation.
• Satisfying stakeholders: Involving clients as little or as much as they like or you can handle lets you establish guidelines on whom they can communicate with and how they can keep them from interfering with the project’s progress. Thus, committing yourself to providing regular updates while actively seeking their engagement through a mutually agreeable project communication plan gives you both what you need.
• Facilitating development: The more openly and honestly your team communicates, the more cohesively they work together. Fostering interaction improves your agency, ensuring that the right people are talking whenever possible, like pairing senior creatives with junior team members and sharing responsibilities for communicating.
• Communication is simplified: Determining what channels to use, like email or phone calls, and establishing their mode of usage, will streamline project communication management across your team. Similarly, accessing shared files counts down on emailed requests for information, thereby keeping teams on the schedule.

Dr. Karen Walker

drcombatpink@kw-productions.com

Personnel Research Psychologist at Department of Justice

Founder of KW Productions