Project Communications Management

Project Communications Management

Project communications management identifies the processes required to assure the collection, generation, distribution, storage, retrieval, and the timely disbursement of project information to all project stakeholders and project team members.

Plan Communications identifies how information will be made available based on stakeholder needs and requirements, as well as defining an approach to Project communications.

Manage Communications addresses how information will be created, collected, distributed, stored and retrieved or otherwise made available to project stakeholders.

Control Communications addresses the process of monitoring and controlling project performance information to ensure the communications needs of stakeholders are met.

Communications Management Plan

The key output of Plan Communications is the creation of the Communications Management Plan. The primary tools for delivering the communications management plan include the following:

• Communications Requirements Analysis - determines the information needs of the project stakeholders. This can be accomplished by interviewing all stakeholders and determining their specific communications needs for the project.
• Communication Technology - defines the technology needed for the project communications.  This can range from face-to-face meetings to video and audio communications platforms designed to facilitate meetings of distributed teams.
• Communication Models - will generally follow the encode-message-medium-decode process.  See the following page for the sender-receiver communication model.
• Communication Methods - there are a number of communication methods, however,  they can be broadly classified into three following approaches: Interactive Communication, Push Communication,Pull Communication

Communication Sender-Receiver Model

The Mathematical Theory of Communication co-authored by Claude Elwood Shannon and Warren Weaver in 1948, has become the most widely adopted sender-receiver communication model. The Shannon-Weaver model, combined probability theory with something Shannon called ‘information entropy’, which measured the uncertainty in a message. The sender- receiver model consists of:

• An encoded idea - in a form that the receiver can understand
• The message and feedback - the output of encoding
• Medium - the medium is the message is transmitted over
• Noise level - any environmental disruptions that can impact the reception of the message
• The decoded idea - the receiver's interpretation or understanding of the received message

It is the sender's responsibility to make sure that the information is clear and complete and to ensure that the message is correctly understood. It is the receiver's responsibility for ensuring the message was received in its entirety, understood and acknowledged to the sender.

PMP Certification Exam - Communications Management - Memory Check

• ___Plan communications management
• ___Manage communications
• ___Control communications

A. The process of guiding communications throughout the entire project lifecycle to ensure the information needs of the project stakeholders are met

B. The process of developing an appropriate approach for project communications based on stakeholders information needs and requirements, and available organizational assets

C. The process of creating, collecting, distributing, storing, retrieving and the ultimate disposition of project information in accordance with the communications management plan

Materials in this course are based on the text, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Sixth edition, Project Management Institute, Inc. 2018