{"id":558,"date":"2007-09-18T16:20:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-18T16:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/2007\/09\/18\/project-communications-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-2-of-3\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:37:36","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:37:36","slug":"project-communications-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"Project Communications – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Footprint\"In part 1 of this blog, we talked about not all communication events were pushed<\/em> out to the project stakeholders.\u00a0 Let’s look at some different types of communications interventions that represent the information, ideas, topics and subject matter that flow to and from the stakeholders through formal communication channels.<\/p>\n

Information about the Project:<\/strong>\u00a0 One type of communication is the information associated with the project.\u00a0 Team members and other stakeholders understand more about the project; it’s status and how it affects them.\u00a0 This type of communication ensures stakeholders feel they are kept up-to-date and how it will affect them and their project team.\u00a0 In some projects where there are large groups of being managed by the project (i.e., software development teams, engineering teams, researchers, etc.) the importance for them to collaborate with near “real time” information is critical to their productivity.\u00a0 Also, the importance to have a single voice for project information reduces flow from unofficial or erroneous sources.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation that is Strategic:<\/strong>\u00a0 Stakeholders want to understand how the benefits of the project to their company, organization or other affiliation.\u00a0 Why was the project started?\u00a0 What was the business case?\u00a0 This is critical for key stakeholders of the project.\u00a0 Executive sponsorship must be nurtured.\u00a0 We can all reflect on projects that required a long process to rebuild support from key sponsors.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation relating to Organization:<\/strong>\u00a0 Key to many stakeholders is how this project affects their roles, relationships, work groups and even future jobs.\u00a0 We have seen the “rumor mill” churn when this communication is not effective.\u00a0 Conflicting statements will create confusion and chaos.\u00a0 Your stakeholder analysis should identify these gaps allowing you to identify a proactive communications solution.
\n\u00a0
\nAnother way to address the projects impact to an organization is to utilize the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3).\u00a0 This model looks at three interlocking elements covering
\n\u00a0
\n1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Knowledge<\/strong> about organizational project management.
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Perform an Assessment<\/strong> of the current state of project maturity.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A path for Improvement<\/strong> to increase project management maturity.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation about Behavior:<\/strong>\u00a0 When projects impact change in organization or work groups, the communications need to address how different organizations work together to ensure a successful project.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation at a personal level:<\/strong>\u00a0 All stakeholders are interested in “what’s in it for me.”\u00a0 How will they benefit from the project and how to reinforce a positive behavior?\u00a0 Don’t rely only on your perceptions; collect data to establish what people really feel about the project and its impact on themselves.\u00a0 You can then better understand what communications strategy to deploy.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation addressing professional development:<\/strong>\u00a0 Being able to ensure all stakeholders have the necessary training to accept the changes to their work processes.\u00a0 This would include planning and administration of training.
\n\u00a0
\nInformation regarding the functionality or product impacts<\/strong> by the project.\u00a0 This happens all of the time (i.e., There is bad communications between the sales team, development team and the project team).\u00a0 Sometimes this single communication element becomes one of the primary causes for projects to fall behind schedule.
\n\u00a0
\nThis is not a definitive list but I wanted to reflect the potential scope of communications.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are their additional categories of communications that are important unique to your projects?
\n<\/em>\u00a0
\nFor this reason, going into a new project requires a lot of thought and planning before the first communication is developed and sent.\u00a0 Let’s talk a little more about how to go about doing a stakeholder analysis and communications impact on the project plan.
\n\u00a0
\nOne of the first planning activities should be to create a list of the different stakeholder groups.\u00a0 A good place to start is identifying the natural working groups of stakeholders associated with the project.\u00a0 You can then take the data from this and create a Stakeholder Matrix.\u00a0 I would even do this for projects of any size.\u00a0 It can be an eye-opener.\u00a0 At a minimum, every communications plan should have a clear picture of their individual stakeholder needs.
\n\u00a0
\nFrom this information, you can create a simple stakeholder matrix including project teams, customers, users and others involved or impacted by the project.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Stakeholder Groups<\/td>\nNames<\/td>\nStakeholder Involvement<\/td>\nStakeholder Expectations<\/td>\nStakeholder
\nNeeds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Champions<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Agents<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sponsors<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Project Leadership<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Project Teams<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Champions<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Users<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Customers<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Leadership<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Others impacted by the project<\/td>\n\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n		\u00a0
\n<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/em>Once stakeholders are identified, you can identify what type of information will be needed to collect and analyze for each of the different groups of stakeholders.\u00a0 Additionally, based on the impact of your project, you might need to know what communication vehicles they presently have\/use, the physical location of the stakeholders, their organizational structure, what processes and procedures they use being impacted by the project, and behavioral needs.\u00a0 Every project has different and unique stakeholder requirements: what other requirements have you identified on your projects?\u00a0 You can build these into your stakeholder requirements matrix.
\n\u00a0
\nPlease share any examples of how ineffective communications have caused setbacks in projects you have participated in.\u00a0 Also, identify a solution that could have been implemented to prevent this problem from happening.
\n\u00a0
\nIn addition to responding to this blog: you can also contact me directly at jim@carras.com<\/a> to discuss your specific project communications related questions or needs you might have, or visit my new website www.virtualprojectcommunications.com<\/a> .<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In part 1 of this blog, we talked about not all communication events were pushed out to the project stakeholders.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","tag-communication"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13816,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/13816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}