Effective Project Communication: Principles and Challenges, Appunti di Project Management

Scarica Effective Project Communication: Principles and Challenges e più Appunti in PDF di Project Management solo su Docsity! University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture COURSE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT 1 University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 2 Communication is a vital skill, and the stakeholders and project team deserve decent communication Aims of this module «Communication is the real work of leadership» Nitin Nohria «The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate» Joseph Priestley By the end of this module, students should be able to: • Explain why communication is important in project management • State the tensions that exist in communication • State the principles of good project communication • Plan communication for the project • Create a stakeholder management plan • Distribute the right information about the project to the right people at the right time. University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 5 TEN PRINCIPLES OF PROJECT COMMUNICATION Experience shows that there are 10 principles of communication that a project manager should follow The 10 principles are: 1. Know your audience 2. Know what you are talking about 3. Pick the right medium for the audience 4. Recognize tensions in the needs to communicate 5. Work with the sponsor 6. Test and adjust 7. If your message can be misunderstood, it will be 8. Plan and rehearse 9. Let people know what is going on, especially your sponsor 10. Listen and ask questions – understand that communication is two – way. University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 6 1. Know your audience Different audiences have different needs A key part of knowing your audience is to know their emotions. Understand the emotions of the people you are dealing with and learn to work with them, not against them «It is an unfortunate fact that few commanders, and no politicians, realize the individuality of units and the necessity of playing on human emotion. Speaking of this reminds me that [General Willard S.] Paul once told me, with perfect sincerity, that the greatest moment of his life had been at the Battle of the Bulge when I put my arm around him and said “How is my little fighting son of a bitch today?” He said that this remark inspired not only him, but every man in the division, and it is highly probable that it did» General Patton … continue University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 7 Project manager will not be an expert on the subject matter covered in all areas of the project Often the team members will know more than project manager on a subject If you don’t know what you are talking about, you will not be credible. You must know the things you are expected to know as project manager If you asked something that is out of scope, rather than waste time, find a polite way of telling them that it is out of scope Different people understand things in different ways Know the audience and adapt the style for them. This does not mean swearing every third word if they do, but it does mean simplifying the language and using examples to illustrate the message that will be familiar to them 3. Pick the right medium for the audience 2. Know what you are talking about … continue University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 10 Think how your message could be misunderstood. Look for vague words, unfortunate associations, hidden meanings. Use the test described above to check especially for misunderstanding Plan and rehearse is an extension of test and adjust Plan your communication. Rehearse delivering it Mental rehearsal is often the most important thing 8. Plan and rehearse 7. If your message can be misunderstood, it will be 9. Let people know what is going on, especially your sponsor Stealth is good for bats and bombers and assassins, but not for project managers Tell your sponsor what you are doing … continue University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 11 Communication is not transmission only. It is also receiving and listening Ask questions, not to show off but to clarify what is not clear and to show that you are listening 10. Listen and ask questions – understand that communication is two-way … continue Barriers to listening Dreaming: half-listening until some private association is triggered, then … (This is particularly common when anxious or bored) Derailing: changing the subject before they have finished Mind reading: second-guessing what they really mean rather than what they are in fact saying Placating: agreeing with everything – but only because you are not really involved Filtering: listening for something specific but ignoring everything else Being right: refusing to listen to suggestions, criticism and comments; not accepting that someone might have proved you wrong Judging: you already know that this person isn’t worth listening to Sparring: so quick to argue or raise counterpoint that they never feel heard. Avoid by replaying what you’ve just heard University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 12 E-mail is great, but e-mail alone is not communication Both meetings and e-mails have a role but they are not interchangeable. One is an opportunity for two-way communication, and the other is deliberately one-way only E-mail alone is not communication Meeting allow rich person-to-person exchange of information, much of which can be of the non-verbal kind that carries significant meaning An exchange of e-mails may have some of the characteristics of a conversation, but it loses much of the richness of a real conversation, and because people delay answering e-mails until they are ready it is sometimes slower IT staff are particularly prone to avoiding human contact and relying on e-mail instead University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 15 Communications planning The aim of communications planning is to ensure that you communicate the right information to the right people at the right time Planning includes finding out the following: • Who wants communication about your project? • Who needs it? • In what format? • What communication channels are available? • What reports should you submit and when? • Who is going to do the work of producing the reports and other communication material? • What are the major communication risks and opportunities? «Communications Planning (Process). The process of determining the information and communications needs of the project stakeholders: who they are, what is their level of interest and influence in the project, who needs what information, when they will need it, and how it will be given to them» PMBOK Guide University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 16 Communications planning Project managers are the focal point of communications in the project Good communication leads to efficient working, good morale, and project success A factor in planning your communications is the complexity of possible communications channels and communications methods University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 17 Information distribution Information distribution is the process of executing the communications management plan Distribution is about executing the communication plan, and there is little to say here that has not been covered above in the section on communication planning, except for two things: first, to emphasize again the importance of how you communicate; and secondly, to say something about requested changes as the output of the information distribution process University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 20 Performance reporting University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 21 Performance reporting Performance reporting includes the following factors: • What the stakeholder expect to hear about project progress • What the stakeholder wants to hear about it • What it is reasonable that they should hear, i.e. actual progress as against the schedule and scope • What you want them to understand • How to deal with the gaps in the above. Finding out about and then reconciling all of these is a major task. The tools and techniques of performance reporting are there to make this task easier «Performance Reporting (Process). The process of collecting and distributing performance information. This includes status reporting, progress measurement and forecasting» PMBOK Guide (p.366) The key idea in performance reporting is to tell each stakeholder how the project is doing in relation to their particular, but valid, interests. “How it is doing” must include bad news as well as good. “Valid” means within the scope of the project University of Parma Department of Engineering and Architecture 22 Performance reporting Time and cost reporting are of particular interest to the sponsor and other stakeholders The sponsor, the steering committee, the managers of other projects that are waiting for your resources, the various stakeholders, and of course the users, are all keen to know how things are going The most significant reporting task for a project manager is the weekly or fortnightly report to the sponsor The project status report for the Program Office, where there is one, is almost as important The project status report is an essential document, but since it contains summary information of what should already have been generated for internal project use, it should be simple to produce The design of reports is worth thinking about most carefully. Gantt charts are good for showing time, PERT charts are good for showing dependencies, and milestone charts are often what senior managers want to see