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Managing communications effectively and efficiently
By Abudi, Gina
Communication on our projects is challenging! There are so many individuals we must communicate with from the very beginning through to implementation and evaluation – and they all want to be communicated with differently! Additionally, our communications vary depending on the role we have on the project, the stage of the project that we are in, and with whom we are communicating. Regardless of your role on the project – you must learn to communicate effectively to be successful.
While there are many paths we can take in discussing communications on projects, this paper will discuss best practices for engaging stakeholders early on and continuing to communicate and engage stakeholders and others throughout the project lifecycle. Additionally, given that many of our projects these days have a virtual component and likely we are working with individuals from across the globe – our communications are becoming even more complex and challenging. The use of technology enables for more effective communications in such situations along with an understanding of cultural differences and their impact on how we process communications received.
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Art of communication in project management
By Rajkumar, Sivasankari
This paper focuses on the importance of communication in project management. Nothing is more important to the success of a project than effective communication. More effective communication = Better project management is obviously known to everyone in project management, but we do face difficulties in implementing it due to various factors like the nature of the project, structure of the organization etc. About 90% of the time in a project is spent on communication by the project manager. If this continues in a project, there is a danger of missing the deliverables or other outcomes as required by the sponsor. This paper highlights more specific details like, what communication means in a project, the steps required for effective communication, the major obstacles in communication, how to overcome obstacles through communication sharing, the importance of communications in diverse work groups and provides a four-step process for effective communication explained with a case study. As all of us know, communication is not an absolute, finite thing. Developing an effective communication plan is explained in steps on how to identify communication requirements: 5Ws (What, Why, Who, Where, When) and 1H (How). Enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets are also described. So in short, if the steps outlined in this paper are considered and followed, more time would be saved for the project manager. Therefore, he or she can concentrate on other loopholes and successfully complete the project.
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Project communication–foundation for project success
By Berzkalns, Ilga
Project management is not just putting together a project plan using work breakdown structures, calculating critical paths, and developing charts and timelines. Even the best project plan will not be successful without project communication. Effective, regular project communication requires planning and tailoring to the appropriate recipient of the information. Effective project communication ensures that all relevant parties can contribute to the project to their fullest extent to meet and exceed expectations.
The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach for planning and establishing a project communication system. While many project managers are well-versed in task and deliverable oriented project planning activities, a systematic, consistent, and repeatable approach to planning and, ultimately, monitoring and control of communication is often overlooked. Furthermore, communication plans should focus on the control aspects of the project, and not on the task-based communications between individual project team members in completing project deliverables – a common mistake that can result in complex, unmanageable communication plans. Are project plans and communication plans a duplication of effort? This question is further explored in the paper.
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Bringing your project communications into the 21st century
By Matassa, Pete
Excellent project communications can serve as a catalyst for transforming stakeholder perceptions of a project from good to very successful. Conversely, poor project communications can transform stakeholder perceptions of a project from excellent to mediocre.
Historically, project managers have emphasized hard skills of project management; issues such as developing better project metrics to control the project and creating more sophisticated work breakdown structures to track the project. However, in spite of implemented continuous improvement for project hard skills, often project stakeholders are still not satisfied with the product delivered. A key contributor to this lack of satisfaction is that project communications have not demonstrated the same level of continuous improvement.
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Communication works for those who work at it
By Deguire, Manon
As organizations evolve toward flatter structures, project managers are increasingly called upon to interact and communicate with different organizational levels, adding yet again an extra and demanding dimension to their more traditional communication roles. This paper describes a variety of reference models that can prove both inspirational and helpful to the development of a variety of communication skills that better suit project managers’ evolving present and future challenges.
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Project communication management in five steps
By Terrell, Michael S.
For some project managers, communicating effectively is natural and easy. For others, effective communication is a learning experience. Either way, we spend considerable time in verbal as well as formal and informal written communication. Whether these communications involve exchanging status information or setting project objectives, project managers must ensure that the information is transmitted and received effectively.
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Requirements for effective project communications
By Levin, Ginger | Rad, Parviz F.
The primary mission of the project manager working with either a virtual team or a traditional team is the delivery of the desired product or the facilitation of the required service. To that end, the team’s efforts are focused on the activities and measures that would produce the deliverable of the project in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The team must plan the delivery of the product or service through best practices, policies, and procedures. Effective communication within the team and with the project’s internal and external stakeholders is required.
Communication is defined as the transfer of some type of message that contains one or more pieces of information. The information that is conveyed can be either through formal channels or informal channels. Today’s project manager is both blessed and cursed by the quantity of communication tools available in the workplace. Formats for communication are extensive and include individual meetings, staff meetings, conference calls, e-mails, videoconferences, messages, and faxes. What each of these formats has in common is that all communication is interpersonal and goes from the sender to the receiver or receivers.
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Communications as a strategic PM function
By Davis-Muffett, Patricia
As information technology becomes more and more enmeshed in every aspect of global business, we increasingly hear about the need for chief information officers and their teams to gain a better understanding of the needs of business executives and to understand how best to communicate with them. This poses a major challenge. And since project management is a profession that emerged primarily from the technical disciplines of engineering and technology, it poses a major challenge for the project manager as well. Project managers have typically been highly technically proficient and very good at motivating a team. The disciplines associated with communications and marketing, however, are quite foreign. As more and more project managers gain a place at the table with business executives, these skills become increasingly critical. It is no longer sufficient to have a communications plan built around providing the appropriate status reviews at the right point in the governance process. Instead, project management offices must take a proactive approach to actively marketing their project goals to the wider organization and to other stakeholders beyond their organization if they want to keep their funding, maintain focus on their efforts, and, ultimately, ensure success.
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Managing a successful project is a challenge. Many project managers failed to complete projects as scheduled.
Totally in agreement. Thanks