Communication is something that many people take for granted as they do not realize that 80 per cent of human interaction is misunderstood or misinterpreted to some extent due to poor communication, according to research. This is why communication needs special attention at the personal as well as the organizational level. Communication should be planned carefully. On projects, communication plans serve the important function of ensuring that the what's, how, who, why and when, of communication are clearly defined and documented.
During project progress, it is important to communicate the status of the project to the client, upper management and department managers. However, the type of information needed by each one of these managers is different.
For example, while the department manager might need detailed weekly information on how his department employees are performing on the project, an executive will not benefit much from that information. An executive prefers to get a monthly report about the progress of all the projects that are undertaken by the company, but at a summary level. It is also important to take the stakeholders' needs into account when designing these reports. While the requirements of a department manager can be fulfilled, in the example above, using a simple table with a listing of information about his resources, an executive will probably need more of a graphical and coloured design to allow representation of summary level information for multiple projects.
There are many stories of departmental, project level and even organizational failures that have happened simply because the management failed to draw up a communication plan.
One example that comes to mind is that of a newly established quality department at a client's organization in the US. The new department was pulled in so many directions by managers throughout the organization who complained that the department was not providing them with any valuable data. They were demanding to get information. Some knew what they wanted while others did not. Many of the requests made were actually out of the scope of the organization's work.
The department called a consulting company to help them improve their performance. After examining the situation, the consulting company concluded that the department was dedicating most of its time and effort to obtaining appropriate software while their real problem was the lack of a communication plan. The new quality department simply never took the time to develop a communication plan that would describe their responsibilities as related to providing information, and what information other departments should provide them with in order to perform their function. As a result, management was completely dissatisfied with the department's performance.
The department just did not know how to communicate with others and did not take the time to learn what others expected from them and how to fulfil the communication needs of their constituents.
A communication plan describing the exchange of information between different stakeholders and the organizational unit would have helped the department to avert all these troubles.
A communication plan can have a simple design. It is simply a document that has to include information about who the stakeholders are, what information they need, in what format, how often and who is responsible for providing the information. Also when deciding on the information needs of stakeholders, it is important to look into these needs with the different stakeholders to understand their specific requirements. The discussion will encourage the stakeholders to think about their communication needs and help the departmental unit develop the communication plan to set the expectations right for the stakeholders.
An organizational unit developing a communication plan should also consider disseminating information on their accomplishments and lessons learned as part of their effort to market the initiatives undertaken by the unit.
It is wise to consider taking advantage of all media outlets and technologies available to communicate with stakeholders including Internet services, and video conferencing, among other tools available today to help make communicating more convenient, timely, and effective.
By Ammar W. Mango
© Jordan Times 2007
