PM DQR Week 5
PM Week 5 DQR
In responding to your peers, compare and contrast your peers' selected activities or actions and offer suggestions for additional activities/actions to keep a project within scope and schedule.
Angie Hardley
Communication during a projects lifecycle is extremely important to the overall success of any project. Good communication allows a project to resolve issues, fine tune plans, communicate timelines and preferences along with many other useful benefits. It is imperative that project managers develop a Project Management Communication Plan early in the process. A good communication plan will identify different stakeholders needs and establish goals for communicating with them, determine the types of information that need to be communicated, and lay out the methods and frequency for communicating these things. Having these items in a written document allows both the team and the stakeholders to have a written reference and sets the expectation for this going into the project. A written Project Management Communication Plan also allows for the collection of feedback from the teams and stakeholders. This contributes to higher and better visibility (less noise) into a project and increases productivity in meetings.
In a project I would implement:
In Person Meetings (or Zoom if necessary for members)
This type of communication is interactive and allows for back and forth dialogue between members. It would also provide time and space if formal presentations were necessary along the way. This type of meeting allows the team to develop a detailed to-do list for the next phase of a project as well as bring findings to the group that allow for collaborative problem solving.
Meeting Summary via Email
A meeting summary of relevant details could be sent to stakeholders or team members as a push method of communication. This would allow people who's presence at the meeting may not be necessary to still know how a project is progressing. It would also allow the project manager to send only communications relevant to the stakeholder or omit sensitive information depending on the individuals.
Progress Publication Through an App
I would love to have the ability to utilize technology such as an app that would allow a pull type communication. This might allow stakeholders to open the app and see the progress of the project in live time, giving them a broad overview of the project without getting stuck in any particular detail. I also believe it may cut down on the number of "where are we on this?" questions that take up team members time.
References:
MindEdge Inc, (2014) Project Management. Retrieved from: https://snhu.mindedgeonline.com/content.php?cid=87524
Lucid content team. How to create a project Management Communication Plan. (2022) https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/project-management-communication-plan
Response –
Chaitanya Erella
Project Stakeholder communication is a practice in project management. Before starting a project, A project manager should identify how the information would be communicated to the stakeholders through different phases of the project. A communication plan specifies who should be communicated with, who should communicate the information, communication data, communication frequency, and communication channel. Communication has its value when it is beneficial to stakeholders or team members.
As the project progresses the wants may change and therefore the stakeholders should be asked regularly if their needs are still intact. It is also vital to identify what methods of communication the stakeholders would prefer. The project manager should avoid using industry jargon unless all stakeholders can understand it.
Project communication plan which explains what and when the information is going to be communicated is often useful for a project manager to stay on top of communication with stakeholders. Separate documentation is not required to maintain the communication plan. The level of details that needs to be included for the stakeholder communication might vary depending on the recipients. For example, to the finance team, we would communicate the cost-related information and to the upper management team high-level details of the project progress, and risks associated with the projects can be communicated.
Below are the three activities that I would implement to assure that the project is managed within the scope and schedule.
1. Project Summary Report:
One of the more traditional and highly effective methods is the Project Summary Report. Having performed your stakeholder identification research and discovered what information they require, you can tailor these reports to each stakeholder, making this report much more useful and unique.
2. Online or virtual presentations:
This can be physical or online. Online has the distinct advantage of being able to cover major geographical areas quickly and efficiently. If online, you can opt to use video presentation software. Once you have finished your online presentation, save the slides and send them to your speakers so they can view them on their own time.
3. Regular Hurdle Calls: These calls can be scheduled from the initiation stage of the project through to the end of the project. These calls can be specifically purposed to hear the risk and the risk mitigation plan from the stakeholders and also from project team members. By doing this the risks can be identified at an earlier stage and can be avoided by opting for the required precautionary act.
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