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Communications Skills for Project Managers |  |
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Communications Skills for Project Managers | |
According to the Project Management Institute, over 80 percent of a project manager’s job is communication—yet most project management books hardly discuss it. Communications Skills for Project Managers provides practical advice and strategies for ensuring success, even in the face of shifting organizational priorities, constantly evolving expectations, and leadership turnover. This important guidebook gives readers the skills they need to keep everyone in the loop. Readers will find out how they can:
• keep those on the project team—as well as upper management—involved and informed
• establish a plan for communication
• effectively present to stakeholders
• compete with other initiatives within the organization
• convey reasons for change
• and more
Even a project that is brought in on time and on budget can be considered a failure if those outside a project team haven’t been kept informed. This book provides readers with the skills they need for ensured project success, every time.
From the Inside FlapSo why isn’t senior management as happy as you expected? Why did your project team need to put out one fire after another? Why are your end users confused and besieging you with frantic phone calls and endless emails?
What’s all too easy to forget is that the reason the project was approved was to support your company’s strategic and fiscal objectives. Even the most soundly designed project methodology, expertly implemented and technically flawless, can result in a business failure if the project purpose, applications, or very existence aren’t fully understood throughout your organization.
The answer is all about communications skills. In fact, the number one factor in the success or failure of projects is the quality and consistency of communications. If you’re a project manager, the bulk of this responsibility falls to you. In Communications Skills for Project Managers, Michael Campbell unlocks this critical component of project success, illustrating how to keep every project stakeholder in the loop every step of the way—from concept through delivery and beyond. A veteran of countless projects on every conceivable scale, Campbell gives you the universal elements of all communications as they pertain to the specific demands of a project management environment. And you’ll get a generous selection of powerful tools to help you:
• Present the case for your project to senior management and other key stakeholders
• Secure and maintain the right level of leadership support throughout the life of the project
• Combine written, phone, and in-person communications for maximum effect
• Use communications to help manage expectations, risks, and scope change
• Link the hallmarks of project management (defined tasks, specific deliverables, and repeatable techniques) with the change management challenges that sometimes inhibit acceptance of new projects, and learn how to “sell” the need for change by taking the fear out of it through great communications
• Apply top-notch communications strategies to every project you manage from now on
As a project manager, you have to know how to react on the fly to shifting business priorities, evolving expectations, and perennial leadership changes—and to make sure everyone around you understands exactly what’s going on, all the time. Communications Skills for Project Managers shows you how to develop a practical approach to the biggest and most critical part of your job—relating the work of your team to the goals of your organization and the daily lives of its people.
Michael Campbell, PMP, is the President and leader of the Energy Practice at MCA International LLC. He is the author of Bulletproof Presentations and coauthor of the fourth edition of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Project Management. He lives in Houston, Texas.
Michael Campbell, PMP (Houston, TX) is an experienced project manager and co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Project Management, 4th Ed. and author of Bulletproof Presentations. He is a Managing Director for Energy Practice at MCA International.
“Considering how important the area of communications management is for successful projects, this book has been long overdue. Project managers will find its contents invaluable, as they will gain an appreciation of the dramatic, positive impact of effective communications on their projects. Mike Campbell’s book is right on target!”
— Walter A. Viali, PMP, Principal Consultant, PMO To Go LLC; past President, PMI Houston Chapter
According to the Project Management Institute, over 80 percent of your job as a project manager is communication. But you’re so busy with all the other project tasks that you hardly have time to contemplate this crucial role.
Even if you’ve got every component of your project fine tuned and humming, it can still fall short if you haven’t convinced leadership of its value, told everyone exactly how to implement it, and prepared everyone for the changes that new projects inevitably bring. In fact, poorly communicated project information can doom even “perfect” projects to failure. You need to apply the same level of care in sharing information about projects as you do in designing and executing them.
Most project management books gloss over the importance of communications—or ignore the issue completely. But the success or failure of your project is likely to hinge on your skills to manage not just processes and schedules, but people and their expectations, change and its impact, and information and its role in your organization. Communications Skills for Project Managers gives you all the practical advice and strategies you’ll need to ensure total project success—where projects not only work unto themselves but drive the organizational growth that they’re designed (and expected) to accomplish. With this invaluable guide, you’ll learn how to keep your project team, upper management, and all other stakeholders involved and informed every step of the way.
Written by a certified Project Management Professional® and brimming with powerful examples, practical tools, templates for repeatable processes, and a complete case study, Communications Skills for Project Managers ensures that your best project efforts will resonate with every person and every group they’re designed to help.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Thinking About Your Project xi
Communications in a New Way
Why Isn’t Good Project Management Enough? xi
Why Are Project Communications So Important? xii
What Happens If You Ignore Project Communications? xiii
So What Will You Get from This Book? xiv
Business Project Management xv
Case Study xvii
The Payoff xix
1 Linking Projects and Strategy Through
Effective Communications 1
Projects to Change the Business 4
Start with the Expected Business Benefits 6
Conducting a Feasibility Study 7
Developing a Feasibility Study for Project Renewal 8
Clear Project Goals Make Sense to Everyone 9
The Primary Goals of Every Project 10
2 Preparing the Leadership 13
How Involved Should the Leadership Be? 13
Providing the Leadership with a Script 17
Developing a Working Committee and Working Groups 22
Communications and the Working Committee 25
Communications and a Working Group 26
3 Writing the Project Charter 31
Contract 33
Statement of the Business Problem 34
Goals and Objectives for a Successful Project 35
The Primary Goals of Project Renewal 35
Project Scope 36
Assumptions and Constraints 37
Risks and Benefits 38
Project Budget and Schedule 40
Tips for Writing the Charter 40
4 Establishing the Team and Communicating 45
with the Business
Communicating the Sale 46
Relationship with Each Other 48
Level of Knowledge of the Goals and Business Case 49
Credibility of the Project Team 50
Questions or Concerns 50
Information or Techniques to Gain Acceptance 50
Communications Within the Team 51
Managing the War Room 54
Listening Is Part of Communicating 55
5 Common Elements for All Communications 59
Step One: Analyze the Target 60
Step Two: Plan the Approach 64
Step Three: Deliver the Message 68
6 Writing the Case for Change 73
What Is the Secret to Writing a Case for Change? 74
Influences on Behavior 74
Communications Create Perception 76
Process for Building a Case for Change 78
The Results Can Be Dramatic 82
7 Analyzing Changes to Business Process 83
Communicating a Change 90
Building Changes into the Training Plan 91
Building a Leadership Plan 93
Developing Preliminary Performance Measures 94
8 Developing Support for the New Business
Processes 97
Addressing the Fairness Factor 97
When Leaders Backslide 98
When Other Key People Backslide 100
Urgency and Decisions 102
9 Developing an Operations Integration Plan 105
Case for Change 107
Understanding the Process Changes 108
Support Provided 109
Preparation for Project Deliverables 110
Understanding the Timetable 111
Napoleon’s Thirds 112
10 Developing the Communications for the Project 115
The Basics of Communications: It’s All About 115
Perceptions
What Does a Communication Plan Look Like? 117
Developing Effective Messages 125
11 Writing the Project Plan Memorandum 129
for the Executive Team
Review of the Common Elements for All 130
Communications
Writing the Project Plan Memorandum 133
12 Using Communications to Handle Risks 139
Managing Business Risks Through Communications 142
Managing Organizational Risks Through 145
Communications
Managing Risks Through Communications 146
13 Presenting to Stakeholders During Project 149
Execution
Decide Your Purpose 150
Analyze the Audience (Stakeholders) 152
Strategy 157
Build It in Three Parts 158
Practice 159
Questions 160
Visual Aids 161
14 Communicating About Problems 169
Effective Meetings 172
15 Communicating Scope Changes 177
Basic Assumptions 178
Requesting a Change 180
Communicating About a Change 182
Presenting the Options and Reaching a Decision 183
Communicating the Decision 185
16 Communicating with Operations 189
Good News—Bad News 190
Dangerous Assumptions 192
Build a Storyboard to Explain the Project 198
17 Preparing Operations to Accept the Deliverables 201
Providing the Training Operations Needs to Be Ready 202
Performance Evaluation and Project Deliverables 206
Readiness Assessment Checklist 210
18 Overcoming Resistance to Change 215
Reasons for Resistance 216
Types of Resistors 218
Overcoming Resistance 221
19 Handling Competition with Other Initiatives 225
Maintain Situational Awareness 226
Horizontal and Vertical Communications 227
Address Potential Conflicts Quickly 228
Project Renewal 229
20 Writing the Close-Out Report 235
Business Stakeholders 237
Project Stakeholders 240
Packaging the Report 242
21 Providing Feedback to Your Project Team 247
Quality of Work 249
Timeliness and Consistency in Meeting Deadlines 250
Creativity 251
Administrative Performance 252
Ability to Work as Part of a Team 252
Attitude 253
Communication Skills 253
Technical Ability 254
Cost Consciousness 254
Recommendations for Improvement 255
Developing a Matrix 256
Celebrate 257
22 Crossing the Finish Line 259
Communicate with the Business on the Value Created 259
Performance Measures in Operations 260
Communicate with All Team Personnel 262
The After-Implementation Review 263
In Conclusion 264
Introduction
Thinking About Your Project Communications in a New Way
Today, business is changing faster than ever, and most of those changes are being implemented through projects that require even stronger project management. Demand for project management methods and skills has driven the dramatic growth in organizations such as the Project Management Institute. However, just using sound project management methodology will not guarantee successful projects, as many project managers have learned to their dismay.
Why Isn’t Good Project Management Enough?
Too many project managers have been in the situation where a project, which was a technical success from a project management perspective, was viewed as a business failure from the point of view of an operations group. How can that be possible—to be a “technical success” and “business failure”? In the Information Technology world where it frequently happens, it means the software application works as advertised and therefore is, by definition, a technical success. However, the user groups either don’t use the application correctly, or they don’t use it at all! As a result, the project never produces the projected business value—and is considered a business failure.
This book is designed to help you overcome that daunting hurdle and several others that are caused by the wrong communication strategy. I will show you in a step-by-step way how to use communications to deliver a successful business project and bring the business benefits promised.
