Develop The Communication Plan

By Author: Sarah Ryan
Total Articles: 45
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The project manager or the management team is responsible for influencing others in order to provide the necessary human resources for a project. If the necessary people are not acquired, success of the project is in jeopardy.

Projects schedules and budgets may be affected as well as customer satisfaction and quality. If the appropriate people are not available for a project due to constraints, economic factors, time, etc., the project manager or team must assign other resources, possibly with lower competences, as long as this meets project guidelines and criteria. PMP Exam preparation must cover project schedules.

In this task, the project manager develops a communication plan using the project organization structure and external stakeholder requirements.

The objective of this task is to manage the flow of project information.
Task 6: Develop The Communication Plan—
Communications Management Overview
PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT uses processes necessary to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval, ...
... and disposition of project information. The following processes are included:

IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS: This is the process in which all people or organizations are impacted by the project are identified. Relevant information about their interests and involvement is documented.

PLAN COMMUNICATIONS: is the communication management process that determines the information and communication needs of project stakeholders.

DISTRIBUTE INFORMATION: is a management process which focuses on making information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner. Effective distribution of information depends on the project manager's and project team's communication skills. Communicating involves writing, listening and speaking. Project management PMP individuals must understand how to complete this task.

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES USED DURING COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING:

THE COMMUNICATIONS REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS results in the project stakeholders' information needs. These results are defined by the type, format, and the analyzed value of the stakeholders' information needs.

The number of potential channels is an indication of the complexity of the project's communications, which should be considered by the project management team during the communications requirements analysis. Determining the number of potential communication channels becomes a necessary part of the planning process.

Aside from stakeholder information, other information necessary to effectively determine project communications requirements includes:

the organizational charts
The project organization and stakeholder responsibility relationships
group disciplines and specialties
logistics (on-site/virtual locations)
internal and external communications

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY FACTORS which might impact the project include:

anticipated urgent needs for information
the current availability of technology and availability over the project life cycle
the project environment and project team's needs
the level of expertise of the staff to operate the communications systems

Task 6: Develop The Communication Plan—
Plan Communications

COMMUNICATION SKILLS are related to, but are not the same as, management communications. Communications may be formal, informal, written, verbal, electronically transmitted, or face-to-face. They include:

technology transactions
feedback transactions
listening, verbal, written, action, or body language transactions

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