| You are the Project Manager for building HR management tool for PWC with multiple teams in different countries. The dev team in India had call with product manager in US. The team started working on login module however the product manager strictly told them to avoid that. The dev team claims that they were asked to work on login module itself. There is no proof at either end since it was a verbal call. The client is requesting you to add a small feature on the software but he don’t want his boss to know hence he do not want to give this in written The senior developer is not behaving fine and often says that agile scrum is waste of time, also he do not work collaboratively with team mates. |
Communication: The process of sending and receiving information through verbal, written or any other channel/medium is known as communication.
Phase: PLANNING Knowledge Area: COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
This process is responsible for creating the plan for strategizing the communication for the project. In order to manage huge projects where there are 100s of resources located in different geographies, it is mandatory to have a proper communication plan.
Types of Communication:
There are major 4 types of communications that are used in a project:
There are multiple reasons for the communication in a project like giving reports to stakeholders, creating and updating the PM plan, presentations, asking functional manager for more resource, sharing poor performance, scheduling party for milestone achievement etc.
There are 5 Cs of the Communication:
Communication Methods: There are few communication methods that are important methods for the communication:
Communication Channel: The mathematical formula to calculate the communication channels based on the number of participants is as below:
| n(n-2)/2 n = number of participants |
Phase: EXECUTION Knowledge Area: COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
The communication management also refers that the info flows back and from throughout the project, also the stakeholders would require the updates regularly throughout the project.
Blockers: Anything that causes troubles in communication are known as blockers, there are following type of blockers in the communication:
Following are the types of the reporting in the communication:
Status Report: The report that shows where project stands currently w.r.t performance baseline
Progress Report: The report that shows what has been accomplished
Trend Report: This report examines project results over time to see if the performance is improving.
Forecast Report: The report to predict the future performance and project status
Variance Report: The report that compares actual results to baselines
Earned Value: The report that checks for cost, schedule and scope to measure performanceLessons Learned: Performance reports are used as lessons for future projects
Phase: M&C Knowledge Area: COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
In order to keep track of how the communication flow is throughout the project the PM needs to continuously monitor the communication. This is done by ensuring that the communication management plan is properly followed.
It is important to check for the decided metrics to be followed, also the project manager needs to use soft and interpersonal skills to enhance the communication.
It is the duty of the Project Management Team to escalate any blockers in the communication and the PM should always ask for the feedback on the reports shared with stakeholders. Following documents can be used for monitoring the communications like PM Plan, Issue Log, Lessons Learned document etc.
