Categories: Communications Management
Project Communications Management includes the processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information. Project managers spend most of their time communicating with team members and other project stakeholders, whether they are internal (at all organizational levels) or external to the organization. Effective communication creates a bridge between diverse stakeholders who may have different cultural and organizational backgrounds, different levels of expertise, and different perspectives and interests, which impact or have an influence upon the project execution or outcome.
(from PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition)
The Project Communications Management processes are as follows:
Plan Communications Management—The process of developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communications based on stakeholder's information needs and requirements, and available organizational assets.
Manage Communications—The process of creating, collecting, distributing, storing, retrieving and the ultimate disposition of project information in accordance with the communications management plan.
Control Communications—The process of monitoring and controlling communications throughout the entire project life cycle to ensure the information needs of the project stakeholders are met.
(from PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition)
What other questions would you ask when Studying Project Human Resource Management?
1. What’s the difference between Communications Management Plan and Project Management Plan?
2. What are the major types of communications?
3. How many communications channels do you have?
4. How many communications channels do you have now?
5. What's the relation between Project Stakeholder Management and Communications Management?
6. What importance does communication has in closing?
7. What strategy can a project manager use to deliver bad news?
These processes interact with each other and with processes in other Knowledge Areas.
The communication activities involved in these processes may often have many potential dimensions that need to be considered, including, but not limited to:
• Internal (within the project) and external (customer, vendors, other projects, organizations, the public);
• Formal (reports, minutes, briefings) and informal (emails, memos, ad-hoc discussions);
• Vertical (up and down the organization) and horizontal (with peers);
• Official (newsletters, annual report) and unofficial (off the record communications);
• Written and oral, and verbal (voice inflections) and nonverbal (body language).
(from PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition)
Most communication skills are common for both general management and project management, such as, but not limited to:
• Listening actively and effectively;
• Questioning and probing ideas and situations to ensure better understanding;
• Educating to increase team's knowledge so that they can be more effective;
• Fact-finding to identify or confirm information;
• Setting and managing expectations;
• Persuading a person, a team, or an organization to perform an action;
• Motivating to provide encouragement or reassurance;
• Coaching to improve performance and achieve desired results;
• Negotiating to achieve mutually acceptable agreements between parties;
• Resolving conflict to prevent disruptive impacts; and
• Summarizing, recapping, and identifying the next steps.
(from PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition)
