Success from Project

ManagementCommunication is Key

By Shankar N Mandapaka

Index

Introduction

Project Management

PM – Key Ingredients

Communication

Types of Communication

Communication failures

Communication – Rectification

Collaboration is nothing but Communication

Introduction

Success of any project whether it’s big or small is measured from outcomes.

Over a period of time process centric approach gave a way to project centric

approach.

Process centric approach delegated work through-out the life-cycle of the process

thus outcome from one work-center moved into another work-center. Quality Control

persisted and later gave way to Quality Assurance. Success measured is Individual

centric.

As project centric approach made collaboration among various resources to

concentrate on the set goals and defined project outcomes. Success measured as a

group.

In all whether its’s process centric or project centric approach communication is key

to make things clear among all stakeholders from time-to-time thus making way for

earlier prognosis and diagnosis of an identified problem.

Project Management

Project Management is synonymous withvarious construction activities or even warsoriginated long-time back.

Project Management was earlier revolvedaround CPM and PERT.

Later one witnessed various in-built models ingrouping individual tasks and identifying KeyDeliverable Milestones.

Even project costing is in-built into thesystem making us visualize how project over-runs impacts the planned budgets.

For any thing to succeed people, process andtechnology is key and Project Management isnot an exception too.

Nowadays there are established processes andpractices across domains to ensure all criticaloutcomes once identified can be easilymonitored, controlled and implemented.

Project Management

Tasks

Collaboration

Schedule

Costing

Review and Reporting

People

PM – Key Ingredients

Signed contract – again a piece of communication document

SoW – again a piece of communication document describing scope of work for the project on-hand

Team & establishing roles and responsibilities – again a piece of document on shared roles and individual team member roles in the project team

Plan and Schedule – who does what, when, how and where again a piece of communication

Execution – communicating with computers to develop the code and software product, EPC activities

Reviews – again a forum to understand the risk, issues and progress – a communication channel

Reporting – again a communication channel to convey progress, risk, issues etc..

Project Closure – a piece of communication to various stakeholders

Communication

What is communication?

Way to express the need, feelings and desires in some form

Why is it so important?

Without expression no one understands so it becomes hidden agenda and will die down over a period of time.

How does it create a success or failure?

A properly articulated expression using any communication medium shall result into planned outcomes whereas half-cooked or baked expression creates chaos resulting into confusion and failure of the expressed message or content

Communication levels and types –

Levels include Public, Private, Official, Government and Personal and types include SMS, e-mail, alerts, hoarding, voice calls, resume, posters, post cards, letters, sign-post etc..

Types of Communication – from PM

perspective

Types of communications as listed in previous slide can even be categorized

broadly as

Verbal – daily stand-up, f2f reviews etc..

Non-Verbal – daily, weekly, monthly dashboard reporting

Visual – Product demo’s, Power point presentation, video chats etc..

Written – e-mail’s, check-list, SoP’s, other contractually signed documents etc.

Electronic – Conference calls, SMS,

Communication – Failures from PM perspective

Project and Programs does have a plan and schedule

consuming various resources spread across people,

process and technology and budgets.

Prioritization is key to executing the tasks and /or

planned activities logically grouped to get required

outcome.

Project Monitoring and control in the form of reviews,

team meetings, stakeholders meeting is the common norm

to assess risk and issues and thereby anticipated failures

or those failures happened can be pulled back to

normalcy.

What are common communication failures?

1) No clear updates

2) Hiding data and information at times in reporting

3) Within software not handling exceptions properly

4) Lack of governance thereby missing some of the key

stakeholders

5) Not alerting on Critical Path Activities..

6) No proactive approach

7) No pre-define agenda even for 5 minute stand-up call.

8) Use of mobile phones during conference calls

9) People working on some other topics (using mobile,

laptops and other gadgets) while attending review

meetings

10) Not muting the microphone while participating in

conference calls from desktop/home at times

11) Matrix reporting data not linked enough

12) Not-Ensuring MoM is circulated post meetings

13) Not-Ensuring follow-up on pending issues is addressed

during review meetings

14) Missing what to follow to ensure EHS is followed in

compliance with local as well as global standards.

Communication Rectification

Commitment is the main aspect to ensure proper communication flows from inside out and vice versa.

Accepting fault and apologizing is the first step to any kind communication failure

E-mail goof-up – Apologize first then send updated e-mail

Add all contact details in the signature section of the e-mail body

Instead of just listening and nodding the head during team meetings raise any alarms immediately and get clarity on the issue points

Do not forward internal e-mail chain communication to external customer

Always respond to Customer (internal or external) ASAP

Conduct code reviews/design reviews with all key stakeholders

Invite unbiased customer feedback using online surveys and using focused project/program specific templates

Publish an escalation matrix and service catalogue to resolve any customer related issues

Publish key team details to all project stakeholders..record changes and publish amended as and when needed.

Get Customer acceptance on the reporting templates freezed for reporting

While publishing daily, weekly and monthly reports review the data and info to be published and ensure correctness, consistency and accuracy is maintained during the entire life-cycle

Collaboration is nothing but Communication

Success comes only when there is a collaboration between people. Be it in

home, school, office and/or society.

Due to nature of team building, team work defining clear-cut roles and

responsibilities is key to ensure all activities or tasks will be completed as per

the plan.

Reviews have to be planned

Keep the reviews to the schedule time slots with minimum disruption.

Involve supporting staff also in team meetings (once in a week) to get

accountability, responsibility and ownership of their work.

Engage customer on daily basis to ensure project do not absorb scope creep.

Always publish any changes using CCB and using authenticated channels.