Project Communications Management Case Study Several issues

Project Communications Management: Case Study

Several issues have arisen on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. The person from the HR department who was supporting the project left the company, and now the team needs more support from that group. A member of the user group that supports the project is extremely vocal and hard to work with, and other users can hardly get a word in at meetings. The project manager, Tony, is getting weekly status reports from all of his team members, but many of them do not address obvious challenges that people are facing. The team is having difficulty deciding how to communicate various project reports and documents and where to store all of the information being generated. Recall that the team members include you, a programmer/analyst and aspiring project manager; Patrick, a network specialist; Nancy, a business analyst; and Bonnie, another programmer/analyst.

Assignment – Project Communications Management: 3 Tasks

1. Prepare a partial communications management plan to address some of the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph.

2. Prepare a template and sample of a good weekly progress report that could be used for this project. Include a list of tips to help team members provide information on these reports.

3. Write a one-page paper describing two suggested approaches to communicating with the hard-to-work-with user.

Below I have provided the templates that I was given:

Communications Management Plan

Prepared by:                                      Date:

1.         Introduction

2.         Collection and filing structure for gathering and storing project information

3.         Distribution structure (what information goes to whom, when, and how)

4.         Format, content, and level of detail of key project information

5.         Production schedule and resources for producing key project information

6.         Technologies, access methods, and frequency of communications

7.         Method for updating the communications management plan

8.         Escalation procedures

9.         Stakeholder communications analysis

Stakeholders

Document Name

Document Format

Contact Person

Due Date

Comments:

10.       Glossary of terms

Status/Progress Report

Project Name:

Team Member Name:

Date:

Reporting Period:

Work completed this reporting period:

Work to complete next reporting period:

What’s going well and why:

What’s not going well and why:

Suggestions/Issues:

Project changes

Stakeholders	Document Name	Document Format	Contact Person	Due Date
Comments:

Solution

1. Communications Management Plan

Prepared by: Joshua (me) Date: 3rd September 2015

This plan gives a detailed outline regarding communication and information exchange on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project.

For collection and filing of information, all data will be stored on the intranet of the company, in a seperate folder named Recreation and Wellness. Only members of the project and business managers will have access to the folder.

Distribution structure - there should be a free and transparent flow of information amongst the project members. There should nit be any kind of restrictions regarding access or disemination of information. This will be the key for the project\'s success.

Key project information should be stored using the APA format. The level of details should be as in depth as possible to enable a non programmer understand the views of a programmer and vice versa.

Production schedule should be detailed and outlined as comprehensively as possible. The schedule should include the project kick off date, interim deliverables dates, what is to be produced in terms of the content development for the interim deliverables and then the final delivarable.

In terms of technology, the programming analyst will have to decide the best technology paltform to be used to make it more user friendly. Access should be free for the project members and business managers. Weekly meetings should be held.

The plans can be updated by the project members, after taking the go-ahead from the project leader, on the folder of the project. Other members will have to be informed about the same.

For the escalation of any issues, the project leader or any business manager should be informed.

Progress report template:

Project Name: Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project.

Team member name: Joshua

Date: 3rd September 2015

Reporting period: 3rd quarter

Work completed this reporting period: During the 3rd quarter, the 4th interim deliverable has been completed and the data and other information has been uploaded on the intranet.

Work to be completed: during the next quarter, only the last and final delivarable has to be completed.

What\'s going well: the project is going on schedule without any bottlenecks and delays

What\'s not going well: 1 member is extremely aggressive and does not give the other members of the group voice their opinions.

Suggestions: the aggressive member should be asked to tone down his aggression by the business manager. This will allow other members to voice their opinion.

2 approaches for the hard to work user:

The first and more parctical approach is to confront the user and make him realize the futility of his aggression. The person should be made to understand and realize that is aggression is turning out to be a detriment towards the progress of the project.

The 2nd approach (in case the 1st approach does not work) is to ignore the aggressive user. By being sidelined constantly, the user will himself realize that he is not doing something right.