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Project Communications Management

The topic of project communications management is interesting because although it gets little focus on the examination (there are less than eight questions on this topic), it almost always ranks as one of the management areas students and professionals consider the most important for the success of a project. Although there may be few questions that are directly from this chapter, there will be other topics in other knowledge areas that can be found under the heading of communication. (For instance, lessons learned are a form of written historical communication.) Although there are certainly several topic areas on the examination and in the text that are valuable.

the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, retrieval, and ultimate disposition of project information. It provides critical links among people and information that are necessary for project success." As with any form of management, the ability to receive and understand information, send clear and correct information, analyze incoming information, and get data in a form where the data can become useful information are key parts of a manager's function in any capacity, be it project or general management. The professional manager will always have critical tasks that involve communication. As a matter of fact, there are very, very few tasks that a manager does that do not have a component of communication in them.

Managing the Project Team

Managing the project team involves "tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and coordinating changes to enhance project performance". As a result of managing the project team, the staffing management plan is updated, issues are resolved, change requests are submitted, and lessons learned are added to the organization's database if one is available. This topic is as complex and "hard" as any that the project manager has to face.

The inputs to managing the project team are organizational process assets, project staff assignments, roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, the staffing management plan, team performance assessment, work performance information, and performance reports. All of these have been discussed earlier.

The tools and techniques for managing the project team are observation and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management, and the issue log. As with all types of management, it is important to work directly with project members and to have personal interaction with them instead of just waiting for reports. Observation and conversation are two important parts of managing the project team. In fact, these are a major part of the management style known as MBWA, Management by Walking Around. As your project progresses, interpersonal management will keep you informed of how your team members are feeling and the ways in which you can help them be better at their jobs. No job is more important than this in project management.

How complex or simple the performance appraisals are will depend on the complexity of the project, labor contract requirements, any organizational policies that apply, and the length of the project. Some may be formal. These will generally be structured by the organization itself to get information about your project team. Other appraisals may be informal, particularly if the appraisals are ad hoc as you are doing MBWA.

If your performance appraisals are formal, you should begin with a set of objectives for the appraisal. Written documents are used for the most part in formal appraisals, and these documents should help you reach the objectives you set for the appraisal. During formal appraisals, you should give feedback to the team member. This feedback can be negative or positive, depending on performance. A management technique that works well is to give positive feedback before and after the negative. This is known as the "sandwich" technique, where you put negative feedback in between positive feedback. Do not be worried about negative feedback. Most people know when they have done something that is negative. Just make sure that you have it documented and can deliver the criticism without making it personal. Try to have positive ways to correct the actions when you do a performance report. In fact, this would be a good time to set personal objectives for the team member. Write these down and bring them up again when you have your next formal appraisal meeting.

Conflict management, if successful, can result in a better team performance. The more formal the ground rules and role definition are, the less conflict there may be. At first, it is a good idea to have the team members try to work out their own differences. If this is not possible, you should address the problem early and use a collaborative approach. It is important that you do not compromise when working on a conflict. Compromise is likely to make all parties unhappy and will not solve the conflict; it will merely keep it going until a later date. If you have continuing conflicts, you may have to use disciplinary actions or actions suggested by the organization for conflict resolution.

How to Acquire Project Team ?


Acquiring a project team is the process of getting the resources necessary to execute the project. There are five inputs into acquiring the project team: enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets, roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, and the staffing management plan. All of these were discussed in the last section.

The only topic that has been expanded upon is that of the enterprise environmental facts. The areas of discussion are now labeled:


Availability When are people available, and who are they?



Ability What skill sets do these people have?



Experience How much experience do the people assigned to the project have?



Interests Are the project team members interested in their assigned tasks?



Costs How much will the project team members be paid?


The tools and techniques used in acquiring the project team include pre-assignment, negotiation, acquisition, and virtual teams. Pre-assignment simply means that some members of the project team were selected before the project started. This can happen because of a contract or because a special skill set is needed.

Negotiation is a very important part of the project manager's daily duties. The project manager may have to negotiate with the line managers for his or her project team in order to make certain that they will be available when it will fit best for project execution. He or she may also have to negotiate with other project teams, particularly if special skill sets are used in both the projects and resources for these skills are scarce.

Acquisition of project team members will occur when there are no in-house resources that have the skills necessary to complete tasks within the project. In this case, the organization will use outsourcing to fill the needs.

Virtual teams are defined by the us as teams who fulfill their roles with little or no time spent meeting face-to-face. There are many different ways virtual teams occur in organizational life. The first will be if the members of the project team are not located in the same area. Multinational projects are an example. Another reason for a virtual team can be that someone with a special skill works in another place geographically but communicates electronically. There may be issues for handicapped personnel that prevent them from working on-site. And finally, projects that would normally be discontinued because of travel costs can be done using virtual teams.


Human Resource Planning

Human Resource Planning

The first of the process groups in project human resource management is human resource planning. According to PMBOK, this determines "roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships, and creates the staff management plan." The roles and responsibilities can be for either a group of people or an individual. The groups may be internal, or they may be a contracted project management firm. In the case of the latter, it is absolutely necessary that the roles of the people as well as their responsibilities be documented before beginning the project.

With internal groups, the overall organizational policies and structures apply. So too do the roles and responsibilities and the reporting relationships that the team members have within the organization. The structure of reporting lines is extremely important for the project manager to consider because this will determine how the project manager handles the team.

For the most part, an internal project manager does not have complete control over the project team. The various team members with their variety of skill sets usually report to managers in the functional area they represent. As we discuss types of power later in this chapter, you will see how important this issue is for the project manager to consider and manage. Often the external or contracted project manager, if he or she is running his or her own contracted project team, will have control over the entire function of the team. This is one of the major differences in a project manager's span of control.

Project Plan Development

Taking the results of other planning processes and putting them into a consistent, coherent document that can be used to guide both project execution and project control. It includes:
The project mgt processes selected by the project mgt team
The level of implementation of each selected process
The descriptions of the tools and techniques to be used for accomplishing those processes
How the selected processes will be used to manage the specific project.
How work will be executed to accomplish the project objectives
How changes will be monitored and controlled
How configuration mgt will be performed
The need and techniques for comm. among stakeholders

Develop Preliminary Project Scope Statement

The project scope statement is the definition of the project. What needs to be accomplished? A project scope statement includes:

Project and product objectives
Product or service requirements and characteristics
Product acceptance criteria
Project boundaries
Project requirements and deliverables
Project constraints & assumptions
Initial project organization
Initial defined risks
Schedule milestones
Initial WBS
Order of magnitude cost estimate
Project configuration mgt requirements
Approval requirements

Develop Project Charter - Tools & Techniques

Project selection methods: As a project manager you may not be involved in selecting a project but you should know the selection method. There are two main types of Project Selection Methods.
Benefits Measurement Methods: These project selection methods involve comparing the values of one project against another. There are the following type of Benefit Measurement project selection techniques -
Murder Boards - This involves a committee asking tough questions from each project
Scoring Models - Different projects are given scores based on certain defined criteria. Project with higher score is selected.
Benefits Cost Ratio - This technique involves computing benefits to cost ratio (BCR) for a project. Project with higher BCR is selected.
Payback period - This technique involves considering how long it takes back to "pay back" the cost of the project. Inflation or interest earned in not considered in this technique. A project with lower pay back period is better.
Discounted Cash Flow - This technique takes into account the interest earned on the money. The Future Value (FV) of projects is compared.
FV=PV(1+i)n
PV is the present value of the project. A project with higher present value is better.
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) - A project that has higher IRR is better, as it is giving higher return on money.
Constrained Optimization Methods: These Project selection methods are used for large projects. These are techniques based on mathematical models. The Constrained Optimization techniques are -
Linear Programming
Non-Linear Programming
Integer Algorithm
Dynamic Programming
Multi-objective Programming

What is a Project Office?

A formal structure that supports project mgt within an organization and usually takes one of three forms:
Providing the policies, methodologies and templates for managing projects within the organization.
Providing support and guidance to others in the organization on how to manage projects, training others in project mgt or project mgt software and assisting with specific project mgt tools.
Providing project managers for different projects and being responsible for the results of the projects. All projects (or projects of a certain size, type or influence) are managed by the Project Office.

Difference between Projects and Operations


Operations are ongoing and repetitive where as Projects are unique and non-repetitive.
Normal operations would produce Standard product or service where as Projects would produce Unique product or service
Projects are temporary and have defined start and end where as operations are indefinite and don't have a defined start and end.
Projects are executed by a hydrogenous teams where as operations may be executed by homogenous teams.

Why do we need Project Mgt


Exponential expansion of human knowledge
Global demand for goods and services
Global competition
Team is required to meet the demand with quality and standard.
Improved control over the project
Improved performance
Improved budget and quality

Describing Project Selection Methods

For the purposes of the exam, all you need to understand about constrained optimization methods is they are mathematical models that use linear, dynamic, integer, nonlinear, and/or multiobjective programming in the form of algorithms—or in other words, a specific set of steps to solve a particular problem. These are complicated mathematical formulas and algorithms that are beyond the scope of this book and require an engineering, statistical, or mathematical background to fully understand. Projects of enormous complexity would use techniques such as these to make decisions regarding projects. The vast majority of project selection techniques will use the benefit measurement methods to make project selection decisions.
Benefit measurement methods employ various forms of analysis and comparative approaches to make project selections. One common form of analy-sis is the benefit/cost analysis. This compares the financial benefits to the company of performing the project to the costs of implementing the project. Obviously, a sound project choice is one where the costs to implement or produce the product of the project are less than the financial benefits. How much less is an individual decision. Some companies are comfortable with a small margin, others with a much larger margin between the two figures.
When examining costs for the benefit/cost analysis, include the costs to produce the product or service, costs to take the product to market, and ongoing operational support costs. For example, let’s say your company is considering writing and marketing a database software product that will allow banks to dissect their customer base, determine which types of customers buy which types of products, and then market more effectively to those customers. Some of the costs you will take into account are the costs to develop the software such as programmer costs, hardware costs, testing costs, etc; marketing costs such as advertising, traveling costs to perform demos at potential customer sites, etc.; and ongoing costs such as having a customer support staff available during business hours to assist customers with product questions and problems.
Let’s say the cost to produce this software plus the ongoing support costs total $5 million. Initial projections look like demand for this product is high. Over a 3-year period, the potential life of the software in its proposed form, projected revenues are $12 million. Taking only the financial information into account, the benefits outweigh the costs of this project. This project should receive a go recommendation.
Projects of significant cost or complexity usually take into account more than one benefit measurement method when making go or no-go decisions, or deciding on one project over another. Keep in mind that selection methods can take subjective matter into account as well—the project is a go because it’s the new CEO’s pet project; nothing else needs to be said.
Another project selection technique in the benefit measurement category is a scoring model, or weighted scoring model. My organization uses weighted scoring models to not only choose between projects, but also as a method to choose between competing bids on outsourced projects.
Weighted scoring models are quite simple. The project selection committee should decide on the criteria that will be used on the scoring model—for example, profit potential, marketability of the product or service, the ability of the company to quickly and easily produce the product or service, and so on. Each of these criteria is assigned a weight, depending on the importance of the criteria to the project committee. More important criteria should carry a higher weight than the less important criteria.

Defining Project Selection Criteria

Most organizations have a formal, or at least semiformal, process to select and prioritize projects. In my organization, a steering committee is responsible for project review, selection, and prioritization. A steering committee is a group of folks comprised of senior managers and sometimes midlevel managers who represent each of the functional areas in the organization.
Here’s how our process works. The steering committee requests project ideas from the business staff prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.

A special steering committee meeting is called to review the projects, and a determination is made on each project as to whether it will be included on the upcoming list of projects for the new year. Once the no-go projects have been weeded out, the remaining projects are prioritized according to their importance and benefit to the organization. The projects are documented on an official project list, and progress is reported on the active projects at the regular monthly steering committee meetings.
In theory, it’s a great idea. In practice, it works only moderately well. Priorities can and do change throughout the year. New projects come up that weren’t originally submitted during the call for projects that must be added to the list. Reprioritization begins anew, and resource alignment and assignments are shuffled. But again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Just be aware that organizations usually have a process to recognize and screen project requests, accept or reject those requests based on some selection criteria, and prioritize the projects based on some criteria.
Large, complex projects may be subject to further review via a feasibility study before a decision can be made to accept the project. You will recall that feasibility studies determine the viability of the project and help the company determine if the product or service of the project is marketable, profitable, safe, and doable.
What’s the criteria? Funny you should ask. Project selection criteria is an input to the project Initiation process. According to the Guide to the PMBOK, project selection criteria is concerned with the product of the project. In other words, selection criteria is concerned with what the product or service of the project will produce and how it will benefit the company. Selection criteria concerns every area of business from marketing to finance to information technology to human resources. It can be subjective or objective. Criteria for judging project selection could include financial measurements. For example, the selection criteria might dictate that projects must increase profits by a certain percentage in order to be considered. Equally, project selection criteria might include the criteria that an increase in market share or an increase in the public awareness of the company or product will be enjoyed as a result of this project. There aren’t any rules for project selection as the components of selection criteria are up to the company, steering committee, or project review committee to determine.
Predetermined selection criteria, such as mentioned above, is one aspect of project selection, but so is the individual opinion, and power, of selection committee members. Don’t underestimate the importance of the authority, political standing, and individual aspirations of selection committee members. Those committee members who happen to carry a lot of weight in company circles, so to speak, are likely to get their projects approved just on the fact that they are who they are. This is sometimes how project selection works in my organization. How about yours?