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Introducing Project Communications Management

What’s the most important skill a project manager has?

Communication.

Project managers spend about 90 percent of their time communicating. Think about it: meetings, phone calls, memos, e-mails, reports, presentations—the list goes on and on. Project managers spend the bulk of their day communicating news, ideas, and knowledge. They are communicators.

Project communications management centers on determining who needs what information and when—and then producing a plan to provide that needed information. It includes generating, collecting, disseminating, and storing communication. Successful projects require successful communication—thus, communication is the key link between people, ideas, and information.

Project communications management includes five processes, which may overlap each other and other knowledge areas. The five processes include the following:

Identify stakeholders     The project stakeholders must be identified and categorized, and their needs, perceived threats, and objectives documented.

Communication planning     The project manager needs to identify the stakeholders and their communication needs and determine how to fulfill their requirements.

Information distribution     The project manager needs to get the correct information on the correct schedule to the appropriate stakeholders.

Performance reporting     The project manager relies on EVM and other performance measurements to create status reports, measure performance, and forecast project conditions.

Managing stakeholders     Stakeholder management isn’t easy, but it’s vital to a project’s success. As the project moves forward, the project manager needs to communicate project successes and setbacks—and resolve issues with stakeholders.

Identifying Project Stakeholders

Before the project manager can begin project management communications, she needs someone to communicate with. This is where project stakeholders come into play. Stakeholders are the people and organizations that are affected by the project. It’s essential for planning and for communications to identify the project stakeholders as early as possible in the project. Things can get ugly pretty fast when the project manager realizes that she may have overlooked a group of stakeholders that need to contribute to the project.

Stakeholder identification helps the project manager and the project team plan for the activities, resources, and deliverables of the project. The project manager and the project team may lead the stakeholder identification process, or a business analyst may help identify the stakeholders. In either case, it’s ideal to group stakeholders by their overall influence over project decisions, their involvement in the project work, and their interest in the project outcome. This categorization can help streamline communication.

Contracts are the most formal of all communications, as they are legally binding agreements between two or more parties. If the project is a result of a contract, then everyone mentioned in the contract is considered a key stakeholder to the project. The organization’s procurement management processes, part of enterprise environmental factors, may affect how stakeholder identification and management happen when contracts are involved.

Performing Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder analysis is a process that considers and ranks project stakeholders based on their influence, interests, and expectations of the project. This process uses a systematic approach to identify all of the project stakeholders, ranking the stakeholders by varying factors, and then addressing stakeholders’ needs, requirements, and expectations. Stakeholder analysis follows three logical steps.

1. Identify the project stakeholders and their interest, influence, project contributions, contact information, and expectations of the project. You can complete this through interviews, determining the project decision makers and champions of the project objectives.

2. Prioritize the identified stakeholders based on their power, influence, or impact on the project decisions. Project managers can use a grid system to rank stakeholder attributes from low to high.

3. Anticipate and plan how stakeholders will respond in different project scenarios. This anticipation helps the project manager influence the stakeholders and prepare them for project news, actions, and risk management.

Creating a Stakeholder Register

Stakeholder identification should help the project manager to create a stakeholder register. This document defines the stakeholders and their contact information for the project. The stakeholder register is a directory of all the stakeholders and should include the following:

Stakeholder name and contact information

Geographic location

Project role and contribution

Project requirements and expectations

Project influence

Phase of the project the stakeholder is most concerned with

Details on the role of the stakeholder; for example, internal or external, supporter of the project, negative stakeholder, or neutral

The stakeholder registry can help the project management team create a stakeholder management strategy. This strategy is an effort to manage stakeholder expectations and create synergy and buy-in from the stakeholders. A stakeholder analysis matrix can help define the stakeholders’ interest, assessment of project impact, and any potential responses to the anticipated stakeholder results.

Communications Planning

Because project managers spend so much of their time communicating, it’s essential for them to provide adequate planning for communication. Such planning focuses on who needs what information and when they need it. A project manager must identify the stakeholders’ requirements for communication, determine what information is actually needed, and then plan to deliver the needed information on a preset schedule or based on project conditions.

Communications planning is typically completed early in the project. As part of this planning, the modality of the communications is documented. Some stakeholders may prefer a hard copy document rather than an e-mail. Later in the project, these needs can change. Throughout the project, the needs of the stakeholders, the type of information requested, and the modality of the information should be reviewed for accuracy—and updated if needed.

Leveraging Project Inputs

Project managers should first consider their enterprise environmental factors when planning project communications. As a reminder, the following are the basic enterprise environmental factors that need to be considered for communications planning:

Organizational culture and structure

Relevant standards and regulations

Organizational infrastructure

Human resources

Marketplace conditions

Risk tolerances

Project management information systems

These factors can help the project management team determine what needs to be communicated and to whom. The project manager can also rely on organizational process assets (covered in Chapter 4). The two that the project manager should pay most attention to during communications planning are lessons learned and historical information. The project manager can use this proven information from the past to make decisions about the present project.

Of course, the project manager will rely on the project scope statement as part of communications planning. Why? Because the scope statement ensures that everyone involved in the project understands the project’s goals, and it provides a common point of reference for all stakeholders. This will come in handy when the project manager is managing the project stakeholders.

Evaluating the Project Constraints and Assumptions

Every project has constraints and assumptions. Recall that constraints are any force that limits the project’s options. A project constraint, such as contractual obligations, may require extensive communications. The requirements of the contract should be evaluated against the demands of the project staff to determine if extra resources will be needed to handle the communications. Constraints the project manager should consider when it comes to communications include such things as:

The project team members’ geographical locales

The compatibility of communications software

Technical capabilities

Language barriers

Telephone and videoconferencing abilities

Assumptions will no doubt vary from project to project. Thus, the project manager and the project team should attempt to identify the assumptions made in the project that may hinder successful project communications.

Consider a project operating under the assumption that communications with management can happen only through e-mail. Management, however, expects the project manager to provide formal status reports and daily updates via memos, and also needs staffing updates from each of the project team members. This false assumption can impose time demands that the project manager doesn’t expect.

Identifying Communication Requirements

Stakeholders will need different types of information, depending on their interest in the project and the priority of the project. The project manager will need to complete an analysis of the identified stakeholders to determine what information they actually need and how often the information is needed.

There is no value in expending resources on generating information, reports, and analyses for stakeholders who have no interest in the information. An accurate assessment of stakeholders’ needs for information is required early in the project-planning processes. As a rule of thumb, provide information when its presence contributes to success or when a lack of information can contribute to failure.

See the video Project Communications Management.

The project manager and the project team can identify the demand for communications using the following:

Organization charts

The project structure within the performing organization

Stakeholder responsibility relationships

Departments and disciplines involved with the project work

The number of individuals involved in the project and their locales

Internal and external information needs

Stakeholder information

On the PMP exam, and in the real world, the project manager will need to identify the number of communication channels within a project. Here’s a magic formula to calculate the number of communication channels: N (N − 1) / 2, where N represents the number of identified stakeholders. For example, if a project has 10 stakeholders, the formula would read 10 (10 − 1) / 2 for a total of 45 communication channels. Figure 10-1 illustrates the formula.

FIGURE 10-1    Communication channels must be identified.

Exploring Communication Technologies

Let’s face it: There are many different avenues a project manager and a project team can take to communicate. Project teams can effectively communicate through hallway meetings or formal project status meetings. Information can be transferred from stakeholder to stakeholder through written notes to complex online databases and tracking systems.

As part of the communications planning, the project manager should identify all of the required and approved methods of communicating. Some projects may be sensitive and contain classified information that not all stakeholders are privy to, while other projects may contain information that’s open for anyone to explore. Whatever the case, the project manager should identify what requirements exist, if any, for the communication modalities.

Communication modalities can also include meetings, reports, memos, e-mails, and so on. The project manager should identify the preferred methods of communicating based on the conditions of the message to be communicated. Consider the following, which may have an effect on the communication plan:

Urgency of the information     When the information is communicated can often be as important as what’s being communicated. For some projects, information should be readily available, while for other projects, information needs are less demanding.

Technology     Because of the demands of the project, technology changes may be needed to fulfill the project request. For example, the project may require an internal website that details project progress. If such a website does not exist, time and monies will need to be invested into this communication requirement.

Project staffing     The project manager should evaluate the abilities of the project team to determine if appropriate levels of competency exist to fulfill the communication requirements or if training will be required for the project team.

Project length     The length of the project can have an influence on the project technology. Advances in technology may replace a long-term project’s communication model. A short-term project may not have the same technology requirements as a long-term project, but could nevertheless benefit from the successful model a larger project uses.

Project environment     How a team communicates often depends on its structure. Consider a collocated team versus a virtual team. Each type can be effective, but there will be differing communication demands for each type of team.

Creating the Communications Plan

Based on stakeholder analysis, the project manager and the project team can determine what communications are needed. There’s no advantage to supplying stakeholders with information that isn’t needed or desired, and the time spent creating and delivering such information is a waste of resources.

A communications management plan can organize and document the process, types, and expectations of communications. It provides the following:

The stakeholder communications requirements in order to communicate the appropriate information as demanded by the stakeholders.

Information on what is to be communicated. This includes the expected format, content, and detail—think project reports versus quick e-mail updates.

Details on how needed information flows through the project to the correct individuals. The communication structure documents where the information will originate, to whom the information will be sent, and in what modality the information is acceptable.

Appropriate methods for communicating include e-mails, memos, reports, and even press releases.

Schedules of when the various types of communication should occur. Some communication, such as status meetings, should happen on a regular schedule, while other communications may be prompted by conditions within the project.

Escalation processes and time frames for moving issues upwards in the organization when they can’t be solved at lower levels

Methods to retrieve information as needed

Instructions on how the communications management plan can be updated as the project progresses

A project glossary

Preparing for Information Distribution

Information distribution is the process of ensuring that the proper stakeholders get the appropriate information when and how they need it. Essentially, it’s the implementation of the communications management plan. The communications management plan details how the information is to be created and dispersed—and also how the dispersed information is archived.

Three elements serve as inputs to information distribution.

Work results     Work results, good or bad, serve as inputs to communication because they show progress (or lack of progress), quality issues, and other relevant information.

The communications management plan     This plan serves as the guide for communicating project issues within the performing organization.

The project plan     The comprehensive project may have information, requirements, or described conditions that are integrated with communications.

Examining Communication Skills

Here’s a news flash: Communication skills are used to send and receive information. Sounds easy, right? If communication is so easy, then why are there so many problems on projects stemming from misunderstandings, miscommunications, failures to communicate, and similar communication failings?

Figure 10-2 demonstrates a few different communication models. All models, regardless of the technology involved, have a sender, a message, and a recipient. Depending on the communication model, several additional elements can be included. Here’s a summary of all the different parts of communication models:

FIGURE 10-2    Sender models can vary based on the modality of the message.

Sender     The person or group sending the message to the receiver

Encoder     The device or technology that encodes the message to travel over the medium. For example, a telephone encodes the sender’s voice to travel over the medium, the telephone wires.

Medium     This is the path the message takes from the sender to the receiver. This is the modality in which the communication travels and typically refers to an electronic model, such as e-mail or telephone.

Decoder     This is the inverse of the encoder. If a message is encoded, a decoder translates it back to a usable format. For example, the sender’s message is encoded to travel the telephone wires, and the receiver’s phone system translates the message back to a usable format.

Receiver     This is, of course, the recipient of the message.

Noise     This includes anything that disrupts the transfer of the message

Acknowledgement     Verbal and/or nonverbal signs that the message has been received. Just because a message has been received doesn’t mean the receiver necessarily aggress with the message.

Creating Successful Communications

The most common type of communication between a sender and a receiver is verbal communication. When verbal communications are involved, the project manager should remember that half of communication is listening. This means the project manager must confirm that the receiver understands the message being sent. The confirmation of the sent message can be seen in the recipients’ body language, feedback, and verbal confirmation of the sent message. Five terms are used to describe the process of communicating.

Paralingual     The pitch, tone, and inflections in the sender’s voice affect the message being sent.

Feedback     The sender confirms that the receiver understands the message by directly asking for a response, questions for clarification, or other confirmation of the sent message.

Active listening     The receiver confirms the message is being received through feedback, questions, prompts for clarity, and other signs of confirmation.

Effective listening     The receiver is involved in the listening experience by paying attention to visual clues from the speaker and paralingual characteristics, and by asking relevant questions.

Nonverbal     Approximately 55 percent of communication is nonverbal. Facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language contribute to the message.

How you say something is as important as what you say.

The words in an oral message actually only account for 7 percent of the message. The tonality of the message accounts for 38 percent of the message. The remaining 55 percent of the message is body language. A classic example involves a person talking to a dog. If the person has a friendly voice and posture, the dog will likely be receptive. However, if the person has a mean voice and guarded posture, the dog may feel threatened and on guard. When project managers talk with stakeholders, they must be aware of their body language and posture—not just the words they are communicating.

When you’re taking the actual PMP exam, you’ll be participating in nonverbal communication. Even though the text is written, there are still clues as to what the writer is telling you about the exam answers. Look for plurals, subject-verb agreements that would best answer the question, and determine what the question is really asking you. On long questions, it sometimes helps to skip the back story and get right to the interrogative.

The medium in communication can help or hinder the message. For example, when a project manager talks to a stakeholder in person, the stakeholder has the advantage not only of hearing the message and tone but also of seeing the body language. Remove body language from a conversation, and the message is interpreted by just the words and tonality. Always be aware of the downsides of various nondirect communication modalities: e-mail, reports, memos, and letters.

Electronic communications are more prevalent now than ever before: e-mail, texting, chats, collaborative software, and web meetings. All of these forms of communications are evolving daily, and the rules of how you communicate with these tools change just as quickly. It’s important for the project manager and the project team to establish ground rules for communication when it comes to electronic communication. The project type may dictate what type of communication is appropriate or official, and when to use electronic communication versus face-to-face communication.

Creating Information Retrieval Systems

What good is information if no one can find it? An information retrieval system allows for fast and accurate access to project information. It can be a simple manual filing system, an advanced database of information storage, or a robust project management software suite. Whatever the approach, the information must be accessible, organized, and secure.

The project team, the project manager, the customer, and other stakeholders may need access to design specs, blueprints, plans, and other project information. A good information retrieval system is reliable and easy to navigate, and is updated as new information becomes available.

Creating Lessons Learned

Do you ever wish you could travel back in time? With lessons learned, you almost can. The whole point of lessons learned is to improve future projects by sharing what was learned during the current project.

A lessons-learned session is completed with the project manager, the project team, and key stakeholders to identify lessons they’ve learned in the technical, managerial, and project processes. Think of it: You’re helping other project managers way off in the future by documenting what works and what doesn’t in your project.

Lessons learned should happen throughout the project—not just at the project’s conclusion. As a project moves through phases, project managers can use a lessons-learned session as a good team-building exercise. This means documenting and learning from what worked and what didn’t within the project.

Distributing Information

Throughout the project, the project manager, the project sponsor, the project team, and other stakeholders are going to need information from and supply information to one another. The methods for distributing information can vary, but the best modality is the one that’s most appropriate to the information being conveyed. In other words, an e-mail may not be the correct format in which to share variance information regarding project costs.

Information can be distributed through some of the following methods, given project demands and available technology:

Project meetings

Hard-copy documentation

Databases

Faxes

E-mail

Telephone calls

Videoconferences

A project website

Examining the Results of Information Distribution

Information distribution results in the following:

Lessons learned     When lessons-learned sessions are completed, they’re available to be used and applied. They are now part of the organization’s process assets.

Project records     All the business of the project communications are also part of the organizational process assets. This includes e-mails, memos, letters, and faxes. In some instances, the project team can also contribute by keeping their records in a project notebook.

Project reports     Reports are formal communications on project activities, their status, and conditions. Management, customers, and policies within the performing organization may have differing requirements for when reports are needed.

Project presentations     Presentations are useful in providing information to customers, management, the project team, and other stakeholders. The delivery and degree of formality of the presentation should be appropriate for the conditions and information being delivered within the project.

Feedback from stakeholders     Stakeholders are usually happy to offer their feedback on the project performance. Project managers should then document this feedback and apply it to improve the project’s performance.

Stakeholder notifications     No doubt as the project rolls along there will be notifications to the stakeholders about resolved issues, approved changes, and the overall health of the project. This information should be kept for future reference.

Managing Stakeholder Expectations

In project management, it seems that someone always wants something from the project manager: updates; status reports; quick questions; and queries on issues, risks, and other demands. Managing stakeholder expectations is a proactive process to organize, prioritize, and anticipate stakeholder communication needs before they happen and as they happen. This can go somewhat smoothly if the project manager has done adequate stakeholder analysis to document what stakeholders will want from the project. If poor stakeholder analysis has been done, you can expect a maelstrom of issues, problems, phone calls, and reactionary management. Not good.

The odds of project success increase when stakeholder expectations are managed effectively because issues are resolved faster, time is spent actually managing the project rather than in response mode, and issue management can happen proactively rather than reactively. Issue management, a huge time suck on the project manager and project team, is part of managing stakeholder expectations. When the project manager and team have time to evaluate and respond to identified issues, the issues can be resolved before they become risks and disrupt the project even more. The message? Effective stakeholder identification and planning lead to better stakeholder management.

Preparing for Stakeholder Expectations Management

The responsibility of stakeholder expectations management lies squarely on the shoulders of the project manager. With this responsibility, the project manager needs to quickly gather information, create an approach to deal with stakeholders’ expectations, and then take consistent action to keep stakeholders informed and up-to-date on the project status and issues. The project manager will rely on six things for stakeholder expectation management.

Stakeholder register     The project manager must know what stakeholders expect, their project information, their project influence, and other relevant project information.

Stakeholder management strategy     If the project manager understands the goals and objections of each stakeholder, he can address stakeholder expectations based on what each stakeholder finds most important in the project.

Project management plan     The project management plan contains the communications management plan. This plan, as you may recall, defines who needs what information, when they need the information, and what the expected modality is of the information. Executing this project management plan can help with the management of stakeholder expectations.

Issue log     Recall that the issue log documents all issues, their status, and their ultimate resolution. The issue log is needed to communicate project status, update the stakeholders about certain issues, and foster stakeholder relationships.

Change log     Changes will happen within projects, and this log tracks the proposed changes, their approval status, and their effect on the project as a whole. Changes must be communicated to stakeholders so they can know what changes are occurring in the project and the effect that the change may have on the project requirements.

Organization process assets     Communication requirements, issue management rules and procedures, change control rules, and historical information can all affect how the project manager manages stakeholder expectations.

This is an iterative process that should be done on a consistent basis throughout the project. Stakeholders will become frustrated with the project manager if communication is irregular and does not follow the promises of the project’s communication management plan.

Performing Stakeholder Expectations Management

The best approach, frankly, for performing stakeholder expectations management is to communicate with the stakeholders. These people want to know what’s happening with the project, and they want news about issues, deliverables, and project status. The stakeholder management plan will help the project manager communicate in the most accurate method possible for each stakeholder. Not every stakeholder and not every instance demands formal project communications.

The project manager should use interpersonal skills and management skills to manage stakeholder expectations. This means the project manager works to build trust with the stakeholders, resolve conflicts, and influence the stakeholders for the betterment of the project. On the management side of the equation, the project manager uses presentation skills, writing skills, and likely public speaking skills to convey the news of the project.

Managing stakeholder expectations may result in change requests, something not all project managers are going to be thrilled with. As stakeholders develop a deeper understanding of what’s happening in the project, they may respond to project scenarios with requests for fewer, or more, scope requirements. All change requests, whether it be scope, time, cost, or even corrective actions, should be documented and follow the change control processes.

The project manager may also need to update the project management plan based on the outcome of stakeholder expectations management. Specifically, new communication requirements may cause the communications management plan to be updated to reflect what the stakeholders are now expecting. The issues log may also need to be updated if the status of an issue changes or if new issues have been identified. Finally, the stakeholder register may also need to be updated if new stakeholders are identified or if contact information for stakeholders changes.

Managing Project Stakeholders

The project manager is responsible for managing stakeholders, who often require, or demand, attention from the project manager. Therefore, the project manager must make time to answer questions, get the stakeholders involved in the project, and, at a minimum, communicate the project status. Stakeholder management is vital to a project’s success for several reasons.

It leads to resolving stakeholder issues.

It promotes synergy.

It limits disruptions during the project.

It promotes project buy-in.

Stakeholder management relies on the communication management plan to direct what needs to be communicated and when. The communications management plan will also define the goals and expectations of the stakeholders, which in turn will guide conversations between the project manager and the project stakeholders.

Communicating with Stakeholders

What’s the best way to communicate when resolving stakeholder issues? Face-to-face. Sure, sure, sometimes an e-mail or phone call is quicker and more appropriate for what’s being communicated—but when it comes to resolving issues with stakeholders, a project manager can’t go wrong with face-to-face meetings.

As a result of stakeholder communications and management, the project manager will document project issues in an issue log. Issue logs acknowledge the problem and the importance of the issue to the project manager and the project stakeholders. Many times, an owner is assigned to the issue, and a date for the issue to be resolved by is likewise assigned.

But what happens if these issues don’t get addressed, documented, or assigned to an owner? The project manager can expect conflict, project delays, and unhappy stakeholders. Ideally, the issues in the issue log are resolved, and documentation on how the issue was resolved is included.

Reporting Project Performance

Throughout the project, customers and other stakeholders are going to need updates on the project performance. The work performance information, the status of what’s been completed and what’s left to do, is always at the heart of performance reporting. Stakeholders want to be kept abreast of how the project is performing.

Performance reporting is the process of collecting, organizing, and disseminating information on how project resources are being used to complete the project objectives. In other words, the people footing the bill and affected by the outcome of the project need some confirmation that things are going the way the project manager has promised.

Performance reporting covers more than just cost and schedule, though these are the most common concerns. Another huge issue is the influence of risks on the project’s success. The project manager and the project team must continue to monitor and evaluate risks, including pending risks and their impact on the project’s success.

Another major concern with reporting is the level of quality. No one will praise the project manager and the project team for completing the project on time and on budget if the quality of the work is unacceptable. In fact, the project could be declared a failure and cancelled as a result of poor quality, or the project team may be forced to redo the work, business could be lost, or individuals could even be harmed as a result of the poor quality of the project work.

Reviewing Project Performance

The project manager will host performance review meetings to ascertain the progress and level of success the project team is having with the project work. Performance review meetings focus on the work that has been completed and how the work results are living up to the time and cost estimates. In addition, the project manager and the project team will evaluate the project scope to protect it from change and creep. The project manager and the project team will also examine quality and its effect on the project as a whole. Finally, the project manager must lead a discussion on pending or past risks and then determine any new risks, as well as the overall risk likelihood and its potential impact on the project’s success.

Analyzing Project Variances

Performance review meetings are not the only tools the project manager uses to assess project performance. Prior to the performance reviews, or spurred by a performance review, the project manager needs to examine the time, scope, quality, and cost variances within the project. The project manager will examine the estimates supplied for the time and cost of activities and compare it to the time and cost actually experienced.

The goals of analyzing project variances include the following:

Prevent future variances

Determine the root cause of variances

Determine if the variances are an anomaly or if the estimates were flawed

Determine if the variances are within a predetermined acceptable range, such as negative 10 percent or plus 5 percent

Determine if the variances can be expected on future project work

In addition to examining the time and cost variances, which are the most common, the project manager must examine any scope, resource, and quality variances. A change in the scope can skew time and cost predictions. A variance in resources, such as the expected performance by a given resource, can alter the project schedule and even the predicted costs of a project. Quality variances may result in rework, lost time, lost monies, and even the rejection of the project product.

Completing Trend Analysis

Picture this: You’re a project manager for a long-term project. You’d like to examine how performance has been for the past few years to predict what the upcoming performance will be like. You’re doing trend analysis. Trend analysis is an approach that studies trends in past performances in order to predict what upcoming experiences might resemble. It is great for long projects, analysis of team performance, and predicting future activities.

Examining the Results of Performance Reporting

The goal of performance reporting is to share information regarding the project performance with the appropriate stakeholders. Of course, performance reporting is not something done only at the end of the project or after a project phase. Instead, it is done according to a regular schedule, as detailed in the communication plan, or as project conditions warrant. Outputs of performance reporting include such things as:

Performance reports     These are the results and summation of the project performance analysis. The communications management plan will detail the type of report needed based on the conditions within the project, the timing of the communication, and the demands of the project stakeholder.

Forecasting     Will the project end on schedule? Will the project be on budget? How much longer will it take to complete the project? And how much more money will this project need to finish?

Change requests     Performance results may prompt change requests to some area or areas of the project. The change requests should flow into the change control system for consideration and then approval or denial.

Recommended corrective actions     Corrective actions center on bringing future project performance back in alignment with the project plan.

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CERTIFICATION SUMMARY

Communication is a project manager’s most important skill. Project managers have to communicate with management, customers, the project team members, and the rest of the stakeholders involved with the project. The project manager’s foundation is communication. Without effective communication, how will work get completed, progress reported, and information dispersed?

Communications planning centers on one question: “Who needs what information—and when do they need it?” Consider all of the different channels for communication on any project. That’s many different possibilities for information to be lost, messages to be skewed, and progress to be hindered. The formula for calculating the communication channels is N (N − 1) / 2, where N represents the number of stakeholders. As a general rule, larger projects require more detail—and detail means more planning for communications.

The communications management plan organizes and documents the communication processes, acceptable modalities for types of communication, and the stakeholder expectations for communication. The plan should detail how information is gathered, organized, accessed, and dispersed. The plan should also provide a schedule of expected communication based on a calendar schedule, such as project status meetings. Some communications are prompted by conditions within the project, such as cost variances, schedule variances, or other performance-related issues.

The communication model illustrates the flow of communication from the sender to the receiver. The sender sends the message. The message is then encoded by the encoder and travels over the medium. Once it arrives at its destination, a decoder decodes the message for the receiver. This model is easy to remember if you apply the processes to a telephone call.

Within communicating, there are five characteristics that affect the message.

Paralingual     Pitch, tone, and voice inflections

Feedback     Sender confirmation of the message by asking questions, requesting a response, or other confirmation signals

Active listening     The receiver confirms message receipt

Effective listening     The receiver offers confirmation of the message, such as nodding his head, asking questions, or initiating other interactions.

Nonverbal     Facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language

KEY TERMS

To pass the PMP exam, you will need to memorize the following terms and their definitions. For maximum value, create your own flashcards based on these definitions and review them daily. The definitions can be found both within this chapter and in the glossary.

active listening This occurs when the receiver confirms the message is being received by feedback, questions, prompts for clarity, and other signs of having received the message.

communications formula The formula “N (N − 1) / 2” shows the number of communication channels in a project. N represents the total number of stakeholders.

communications management plan A plan that documents and organizes the stakeholder needs for communication. This plan covers the communications system, its documentation, the flow of communication, modalities of communication, schedules for communications, information retrieval, and any other stakeholder requirements for communications.

decoder This is a part of the communications model; it is the inverse of the encoder. If a message is encoded, a decoder translates it back to usable format.

effective listening The receiver is involved in the listening experience by paying attention to visual clues by the speaker and to paralingual intentions and by asking relevant questions.

encoder Part of the communications model; the device or technology that packages the message to travel over the medium.

feedback Sender confirmation of the message by asking questions, requesting a response, or other confirmation signals.

forecasting An educated estimate of how long the project will take to complete. Can also refer to how much the project may cost to complete.

issue Any point of contention, debate, or decision that has not yet been made in the project that may affect the project’s success.

issue log A documentation of all identified issues affecting the project. Each issue is assigned an issue owner and an ideal date for resolution, and its status is maintained through the issue log.

medium Part of the communications model; this is the path the message takes from the sender to the receiver. This is the modality in which the communication travels, and it typically refers to an electronic model, such as e-mail or the telephone.

nonverbal Approximately 55 percent of oral communication is non-verbal. Facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language contribute to the message.

paralingual The pitch, tone, and inflections in the sender’s voice affect the message being sent.

progress reports These provide current information on the project work completed to date.

receiver Part of the communications model: the recipient of the message.

sender Part of the communications model: the person or group delivering the message to the receiver.

stakeholder analysis A process that considers and ranks the project stakeholders based on their influence, interests, and expectations of the project.

stakeholder registry A document that defines each stakeholder, their project requirements, influence on the project, phases of interest, details on the stakeholders contributions, and their contact information for the project.

status reports These provide current information on the project cost, budget, scope, and other relevant information.

TWO-MINUTE DRILL

Identifying Project Stakeholders

Stakeholder identification is a project management process that centers on correctly identifying all of the people, groups, and organizations that are affected by the project’s outcome.

Stakeholder interests, influence, contributions, and contact information must be documented in the stakeholder registry.

A salience model is a stakeholder classification that ranks stakeholders based on their power, urgency, and legitimacy in the project.

Communications Planning

Communication centers on who needs what and on when and how you are going to give it to them.

Communication requirements are set by stakeholders.

Communication planning is accomplished early in the planning process.

Communications are linked to the organizational structure of the performing organization.

Constraints and assumptions can affect the communications planning.

Acknowledgment of a message can be positive or negative. Just because a receiver got the message, doesn’t mean she has to agree with it.

Creating the Communications Plan

The communications plan provides instructions on how to gather and disseminate project information.

It provides instructions on the communications methods, such as hard copies, reports, and e-mail.

The communications plan should include a schedule of expected communications, such as reports and meetings.

Preparing for Information Distribution

The choice of media is dictated by the urgency and importance of the message to be communicated.

The project manager should be versed in meeting management techniques to effectively run a meeting. Agendas, minutes, and a timetable should be enforced at most meetings.

The project manager should also identify a method to access needed information between regularly scheduled communications for the project stakeholders.

Managing Stakeholder Expectations

Face-to-face meetings are best for resolving issues with stakeholders.

The project manager is responsible for managing project stakeholders.

Issue logs document issues between the stakeholders and the project. When issues are resolved, the issue log should be updated to reflect the resolution.

Stakeholder involvement increases the odds that a project will not veer off track.

Reporting Project Performance

Status reporting provides current information on the project.

Progress reporting provides information on what the team has accomplished—and may include information on what is yet to be accomplished.

Forecasting provides information on how the remainder of the project or phase is expected to go.

Variance analysis examines the reasons why cost, schedule, scope, quality, and other factors may vary from what was planned.

Trend analysis is the study of trends over time to reveal patterns and expectations of future results.

Earned value analysis is a series of formulas that reveal and predict project performance.

Change requests may stem from performance reports.

SELF TEST

1. Of the following, which one is an example of noise?

A. Fax machine

B. Ad-hoc conversations

C. Contractual agreements

D. Distance

2. You are the project manager of a large technical project. You believe that Jose has received the message but does not agree with it based on his body language. This is known as what?

A. Acknowledgement

B. Transmission

C. Negotiation

D. Decoder

3. You are the project manager for the LKH Project. Management has requested that you create a document detailing what information will be expected from stakeholders and to whom that information will be disseminated. Management is asking for which one of the following?

A. The roles and responsibilities matrix

B. The scope management plan

C. The communications management plan

D. The communications worksheet

4. Which of the following will help you, the project manager, complete the needed communications management plan by identifying the stakeholders’ communication needs?

A. Identification of all communication channels

B. Formal documentation of all communication channels

C. Formal documentation of all stakeholders

D. Lessons learned from previous similar projects

5. You are the project manager for the JGI Project. You have 32 stakeholders on this project. How many communication channels do you have?

A. Depends on the number of project team members

B. 496

C. 32

D. 1

6. You are the project manager for the KLN Project. You had 19 stakeholders on this project and have added 3 team members. How many more communication channels do you have now compared to before?

A. 171

B. 231

C. 60

D. 1

7. A memo has been sent to you, the project manager, project team members, and the project customers from the project sponsor. In this instance, who is the encoder?

A. Project sponsor

B. Project manager

C. Project team members

D. Project customers

8. Which one of the following is an example of a project communication constraint?

A. Ad-hoc conversations

B. Demands for formal reports

C. Stakeholder management

D. Team members in different geographic locales

9. Project managers can present project information in many different ways. Which one of the following is not a method a project manager can use to present project performance?

A. Histograms

B. S-curves

C. Bar charts

D. RACI charts

10. Of the following, which term describes the pitch and tone of an individual’s voice?

A. Paralingual

B. Feedback

C. Effective listening

D. Active listening

11. You are the project manager of the KMH Project. This project is slated to last eight years. You have just calculated EVM and have a CV of −$3,500, which is outside of the acceptable thresholds for your project. What type of report is needed for management?

A. Progress report

B. Forecast report

C. Exception report

D. Trends report

12. You are presenting your project performance to your key stakeholders. Several of the stakeholders are receiving phone calls during your presentation, and this is distracting from your message. This is an example of what?

A. Noise

B. Negative feedback

C. Outside communications

D. Message distracter

13. You are the project manager for the OOK Project. You will be hosting project meetings every week. Of the following, which one is not a valid rule for project meetings?

A. Schedule recurring meetings as soon as possible.

B. Allow project meetings to last as long as needed.

C. Distribute meeting agendas prior to the meeting start.

D. Allow the project team to have input to the agenda.

14. The three basic elements needed for communication in project management include which of the following?

A. Words, sentences, paragraphs

B. Proper grammar, spelling, ideas

C. Verbal, nonverbal, action

D. Sender, receiver, message

15. Which one of the following is a technology factor that may affect project communication?

A. Communications management

B. Management by walking around

C. The project length

D. Variance analysis reporting

16. What percentage of a message is sent through nonverbal communications, such as facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language?

A. More than 50 percent

B. 30 to 40 percent

C. 20 to 30 percent

D. 10 to 20 percent

17. When does lessons-learned identification take place?

A. At the end of the project

B. At the end of each project phase

C. Throughout the project life cycle

D. Whenever a lesson has been learned

18. Why should a project team complete lessons-learned documentation?

A. To ensure project closure

B. To show management what they’ve accomplished in the project

C. To show the project stakeholders what they’ve accomplished in the project

D. To help future project teams complete their projects more accurately

19. Often in project management you will have to negotiate. Negotiations work best in which environment?

A. Caution and yielding

B. Sincerity, honesty, and extreme caution

C. Mutual respect and admiration

D. Mutual respect and cooperation

20. You are the project manager for the PMU Project. Your project has 13 members. You have been informed that next week your project will receive the seven additional members you requested. How many channels of communication will you have next week?

A. 1

B. 78

C. 190

D. 201

21. Performance reporting should generally provide information on all of the following except for which one?

A. Scope

B. Schedule

C. Labor issues

D. Quality

22. Which one of the following is an output from performance reporting?

A. Trend analysis

B. EVM

C. Variance analysis

D. Change requests

23. The process of sending information from the project manager to the project team is called what?

A. Functioning

B. Matrixing

C. Blended communications

D. Transmitting

24. George is the project manager of the 7YH Project. In this project, George considers the relationship between himself and the customer to be of utmost importance. Which one of the following is a valid reason for George’s belief in this?

A. The customer will complete George’s performance evaluation. A poor communication model between George and the customer will affect his project bonus.

B. The customer is not familiar with project management. George must educate the customer about the process.

C. The customer is always right.

D. The communication between the customer and George can convey the project objectives more clearly than can the language in the project contract.

25. Which one of the following means that communications occur?

A. The transfer of knowledge

B. The outputting of knowledge

C. The presence of knowledge

D. The transmission of knowledge

SELF TEST ANSWERS

1. Of the following, which one is an example of noise?

A. Fax machine

B. Ad-hoc conversations

C. Contractual agreements

D. Distance

2. You are the project manager of a large technical project. You believe that Jose has received the message but does not agree with it based on his body language. This is known as what?

A. Acknowledgement

B. Transmission

C. Negotiation

D. Decoder

3. You are the project manager for the LKH Project. Management has requested that you create a document detailing what information will be expected from stakeholders and to whom that information will be disseminated. Management is asking for which one of the following?

A. The roles and responsibilities matrix

B. The scope management plan

C. The communications management plan

D. The communications worksheet

4. Which of the following will help you, the project manager, complete the needed communications management plan by identifying the stakeholders’ communication needs?

A. Identification of all communication channels

B. Formal documentation of all communication channels

C. Formal documentation of all stakeholders

D. Lessons learned from previous similar projects

5. You are the project manager for the JGI Project. You have 32 stakeholders on this project. How many communication channels do you have?

A. Depends on the number of project team members

B. 496

C. 32

D. 1

6. You are the project manager for the KLN Project. You had 19 stakeholders on this project, and have added 3 team members. How many more communication channels do you have now compared to before?

A. 171

B. 231

C. 60

D. 1

7. A memo has been sent to you, the project manager, project team members, and the project customers from the project sponsor. In this instance, who is the encoder?

A. Project sponsor

B. Project manager

C. Project team members

D. Project customers

8. Which one of the following is an example of a project communication constraint?

A. Ad-hoc conversations

B. Demands for formal reports

C. Stakeholder management

D. Team members in different geographic locales

9. Project managers can present project information in many different ways. Which one of the following is not a method a project manager can use to present project performance?

A. Histograms

B. S-curves

C. Bar charts

D. RACI charts

10. Of the following, which term describes the pitch and tone of an individual’s voice?

A. Paralingual

B. Feedback

C. Effective listening

D. Active listening

11. You are the project manager of the KMH Project. This project is slated to last eight years. You have just calculated EVM and have a CV of −$3,500, which is outside of the acceptable thresholds for your project. What type of report is needed for management?

A. Progress report

B. Forecast report

C. Exception report

D. Trends report

12. You are presenting your project performance to your key stakeholders. Several of the stakeholders are receiving phone calls during your presentation, and this is distracting from your message. This is an example of what?

A. Noise

B. Negative feedback

C. Outside communications

D. Message distracter

13. You are the project manager for the OOK Project. You will be hosting project meetings every week. Of the following, which one is not a valid rule for project meetings?

A. Schedule recurring meetings as soon as possible.

B. Allow project meetings to last as long as needed.

C. Distribute meeting agendas prior to the meeting start.

D. Allow the project team to have input to the agenda.

14. The three basic elements needed for communication in project management include which of the following?

A. Words, sentences, paragraphs

B. Proper grammar, spelling, ideas

C. Verbal, nonverbal, action

D. Sender, receiver, message

15. Which one of the following is a technology factor that may affect project communication?

A. Communications management

B. Management by walking around

C. The project length

D. Variance analysis reporting

16. What percentage of a message is sent through nonverbal communications, such as facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language?

A. More than 50 percent

B. 30 to 40 percent

C. 20 to 30 percent

D. 10 to 20 percent

17. When does lessons-learned identification take place?

A. At the end of the project

B. At the end of each project phase

C. Throughout the project life cycle

D. Whenever a lesson has been learned

18. Why should a project team complete lessons-learned documentation?

A. To ensure project closure

B. To show management what they’ve accomplished in the project

C. To show the project stakeholders what they’ve accomplished in the project

D. To help future project teams complete their projects more accurately

19. Often in project management you will have to negotiate. Negotiations work best in which environment?

A. Caution and yielding

B. Sincerity, honesty, and extreme caution

C. Mutual respect and admiration

D. Mutual respect and cooperation

20. You are the project manager for the PMU Project. Your project has 13 members. You have been informed that next week your project will receive the seven additional members you requested. How many channels of communication will you have next week?

A. 1

B. 78

C. 190

D. 201

21. Performance reporting should generally provide information on all of the following except for which one?

A. Scope

B. Schedule

C. Labor issues

D. Quality

22. Which one of the following is an output from performance reporting?

A. Trend analysis

B. EVM

C. Variance analysis

D. Change requests

23. The process of sending information from the project manager to the project team is called what?

A. Functioning

B. Matrixing

C. Blended communications

D. Transmitting

24. George is the project manager of the 7YH Project. In this project, George considers the relationship between himself and the customer to be of utmost importance. Which one of the following is a valid reason for George’s belief in this?

A. The customer will complete George’s performance evaluation. A poor communication model between George and the customer will affect his project bonus.

B. The customer is not familiar with project management. George must educate the customer about the process.

C. The customer is always right.

D. The communication between the customer and George can convey the project objectives more clearly than can the language in the project contract.

25. Which one of the following means that communications occur?

A. The transfer of knowledge

B. The outputting of knowledge

C. The presence of knowledge

D. The transmission of knowledge