Points to Remember: Project Communication Management

90% of a project manager’s job is communication

Communications Management makes sure everybody gets the right message at the right time.

Stakeholder Analysis is a critical tool in Project Communication Management process. You need to interview all of the stakeholders you can find for your project and find out the value the project has for them. As you sit with stakeholders, you’ll identify more people to interview. During Stakeholder Analysis you can divide your stakeholders into groups based on their level of involvement and need for communication. When you understand what motivates all of your stakeholders, you can come up with a strategy to make sure that they’re told about the things that they find important, and that they’re not bored with extraneous details.

It’s not enough to know who your stakeholders are – you need to understand what motivates them, and what it will take it to make the project a success for each of them. That’s where the Stakeholder Management Strategy comes in.

Be careful about when you use different kinds of communication. Any time you need to get a message to a client or sponsor, you use formal communication. Meetings are always informal verbal, even if the meeting is to say something really important. And any project document—like a project management plan, a requirements specification, or especially a contract—is always formal written.

You do most of the project communication when you’re performing the Distribute Information process

It’s important to write down the good things you learned on the project, too. That way, you can be sure to repeat your successes next time. Another important aspect of this action is the fact that, other projects can learn about the best practicies from your experience and implement them.

There are only four communication types; formal written, informal written, formal verbal, and informal verbal. For the test, you need to be able to tell which is which.

Report Performance takes the outputs from the Executing process in Distribute Information and turns them into Performance Reports and Forecasts.

Performance reports and forecasts are a lot easier than they look—because you already know all about them! In the chapter on Project Cost Management, you learned how to use CPI and SPI to measure your project’s performance, and you used EAC and ETC to forecast when the project would be complete. Now you’re just taking that information and communicating it!

A kickoff meeting is a great way to get your project team and stakeholders on the same page.

You should add all of your performance reports to the Organizational Process Assets so that project managers on future projects can use them as historical information.


Points to Remember - Other Topics:

Introduction to Projects & Project Management
Relationship Between Knowledge Areas & Process Groups
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Summary - Project Initiation

Let us now summarize whatever we have learnt over the course of the previous few chapters reg. the Project Initiation Phase.

• Organizations start projects for different reasons, such as to meet a business or legal requirement, to take on a business opportunity, or to develop a solution for a problem.
• However, the underlying motivation is always to meet some business objectives in the strategic plan of the organization.
• Three categories of methods are available to select from the proposed projects.
• The first method is the benefit measurement method, which evaluates the benefits from the project.
• Constrained optimization methods focus on the probability of completing the project successfully, and
• Expert judgment relies on expert advice.
• As a project manager, you need to identify each stakeholder: an individual or an organization that is going to gain or lose from the successful completion of your project.
• The initiating project stage is constituted by two processes: Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders.
• The two documents generated by the initiating stage are the project charter, which names and authorizes the project manager, and the stakeholder register, which identifies the project stakeholders and relevant information about them.
• Based on this information, you develop the stakeholder management strategy.
• The project charter also includes project justification based on the business needs and a high-level description of the product or service that the project will offer to meet those business needs.
• Issuing an approved project charter moves the project from the initiation stage into the planning stage, which is composed of a number of processes collectively called the planning process group.
• These processes will be covered in the subsequent chapters.

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Next: Important Terms & Definitions

Chapter 22: Stakeholder Analysis

In the previous chapter, we saw about how to identify potential stakeholders of a Project. In order to devise a plan as to how to handle/manage a projects stakeholders, the project manager must first analyze them. In this chapter, we are going to learn how this Stakeholder Analysis happens.

So, lets get started!!!

What is Stakeholder Analysis?

Stakeholder analysis is the activity that helps us to gather and analyze information about the stakeholders of a Project.

The 3 major steps in this process are:

1. Identify Stakeholders
2. Assess Stakeholders and
3. Classify Stakeholders

Let us look at them one by one.

Identify Stakeholders:

In this step, we identify all the important characteristics of each of stakeholders that were identified in the previous chapter. The information we capture about them will include:

 Name, department, and role. For example, Dr. John Serri, Vice President, Research and Development.
 Interest in the project. Why should the stakeholder be interested in the project—seeking to benefit or threatened?
 Knowledge level. What is the knowledge level of the stakeholder, especially about the project and in the application area of the project?
 Expectations. What are the expectations of the stakeholder from the project?
 Kind and level of influence. In which way and how much can the stakeholder influence the project?

Assess Stakeholders:

In this step, we make an assessment of how a stakeholder will react to various situations in our project. This will help us prepare to influence them in order to get their support and to better the chances of our projects success.

Classify Stakeholders:

When there are so many stakeholders, it’s important to classify and prioritize the stakeholders in order to manage them efficiently. This will help in efficient use of management efforts, including communication and expectations management.

A simple classification would be whether a stakeholder is a positive or negative stakeholder. Of course, there are other more complex/sophisticated classifications of stakeholders. Some are:

1. Based on Power/Interest Grid: In this model you place the stakeholders on a two-dimensional plot: authority level versus interest level. For example, if a powerful stakeholder has a lot of interest in the project, he is of great priority. If, on the other hand, a stakeholder lacks interest in the project, even if he has a lot of authority; then he potentially will not influence the project that much
2. Based on Power/Involvement Grid: Also called power/influence grid, this model plots the stakeholders in a two-dimensional space: authority level versus involvement in the project.
3. Based on Involvement/Impact Grid: Also called influence/impact grid, this model plots the stakeholders in a two-dimensional space: involvement in the project versus ability to impact the project. For example, a project stakeholder may be highly involved in the project but have no ability to impact the project, such as influence the changes in the project. In that case, this stakeholder is of lower priority compared to the stakeholder who has high involvement and high impact
4. Based on Salience Model: This model classifies stakeholders based on multiple characteristics, such as the ability to impose their will or authority; the urgency of their needs, expectations, or requirements; and the legitimacy of their involvement

Based on the stakeholder analysis, you develop the strategy for managing the stakeholders.

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