After this week’s readings in Project Management Communication Tools
After this week’s readings in Project Management Communication Tools, along with the provided articles, and the power point presentation I learned that communication within a project is vital. Additionally, I learned that not all communication is effective or useful and there are multiple ways to ensure all of the stakeholders get the information they need when they need it. The power point notes have a quote from the 2013 PMI Pulse Report that states, one out of every five projects fail to meet business goals because of ineffective communication within the project. This paper will discuss why communication is vital for the success of a project as well as reasons why project managers fail to properly implement effective communication within their project.
According to The PMI (Project Management Institute) ninety percent of a project managers time should be used on communication. If a major institute suggests this, communication must hold some value to the success of a project. Communication within a project is necessary to know the complete status of the project there will be many different aspects of a project and each will have its own information to be shared and used. A project manager needs to be able to convey what information he/she needs as well as what information needs to be shared amongst the whole project and how it will be shared. When everyone involved on a project is on the same page, less time is spent trying to figure out what needs to be done and more time can be allocated to moving forward with the project. The main goal of project communication is to allow the project team and stakeholders to all see the same end goal as well as the steps needed to get there. Unfortunately, due to a few common issues, some project managers fail to implement effective communication within their project.
Not all project managers put the necessary amount of energy and time into the communication aspect of project management, the textbook highlights a couple reasons for this. The people who need to be included when developing a communication plan are; the stakeholders, the project manager, the project team members, and clients and customers. The location, work load, and first language of all of these individuals may vary greatly and it will likely be difficult to get them all in on the meeting set up to develop the communication plan. Some project managers fail because they don’t get all of these people involved. According to the textbook, the more people involved in the communication plan, the better it will be (DOW, Kindle Location 1262-1263). Another reason for the failure of adequate project communication implementation is the failure of the project manager to make the correct amount of time available to complete the communication planning. The project manager doesn’t take the time to fully understand what the customer will need communicated to them. Time constraints cause communication planning to be pushed to the side, which can cause continual issues throughout the future of the project.
