Lesson 09: Communications

00:05 - In this lesson, I’m going to talk a lot about Communication, but again keep it at a high level
00:13 - So, why do we spend so much time on communication?
00:17 - Well, let me first give you an example of bad communication and that will help you to understand
00:24 - So, imagine a project with bad communication. How successful can it be?
00:30 - Not really successful
00:32 - How much support will it get?
00:34 - Not definitely much. And how much confidence would users have in the expected output?
00:41 - Well, if they were aware of it, but not much. You don’t create confidence if you’ve got poor communication
00:48 - Now to have good communication, it’s important to figure out who is who in the project
00:55 - PRINCE2 gives some indication of this, which is good, and you must really try to find an overview
01:02 - Of who’s involved in the project, so you make sure that you are connecting to the correct people
01:09 - Also try to gather lessons about how actually projects communicate within your organisation
01:16 - And then you can follow some similar styles and bring in these lessons and use them
01:21 - There also may be risks to do with communication, so be open to learning from other projects on how to communicate in your project
01:31 - Now there is one quote or one way of thinking that’s out there and it’s mainly from the PMI
01:40 - Where they say 90% of what a Project Manager does is communication. So what is communication?
01:47 - What does the Project Manager have to do when they communicate?
01:51 - Well, I’m going to say it begins with active listening, okay?
01:55 - And that’s a really important part of what a Project Manager will do
01:59 - So, really focus, they ask a question and then listen to the answer, okay?
02:04 - That can take time and energy, but it’s important that it’s done
02:07 - Then facilitation, that’s linked with active listening as well
02:11 - Problem solving is communication because you’re working with people
02:14 - Conflict resolution. Planning. A lot of planning is a lot of communication, it’s all about it
02:21 - Reporting as well is what we generally perceive as communication and I have left it as last on purpose
02:28 - So, let me talk a bit more about planning for a moment
02:31 - So, you may have been surprised that it’s there, but really planning is all about communication
02:36 - The Project Manager will facilitate lots of meetings as required, gather the right people in their project, and then facilitate those meetings
02:45 - So, you have people from the user side, from the technical side and other specialists
02:49 - nd together they will work on the requirements and anything put on paper is all part of communications as well
02:58 - Now, to do with the reporting. So why do we wish to send out reports?
03:04 - Well, because it’s one good way of reporting on the project and where we are
03:10 - So, there has to be regular reports or expectations of information from our project, so it’s a good idea to have it
03:17 - So, let me give you a little road map of how this is done in a PRINCE2 project
03:22 - So, let’s say we start the project up, we go into something we call the pre-project processes, our first look at the project idea
03:31 - We investigate a little bit and then we create something called our brief overview of the project at that particular point
03:38 - I really like the word brief because that’s what it is, it’s like two or three pages
03:42 - And it gives an overview on what happened and that’s used to communicate
03:46 - Our current knowledge or our current information that we have on the project today
03:51 - So we can give that to people and they can decide whether this project is interesting or not
03:57 - Or they agree to work on the project or not, let’s say
04:01 - And then we go into the initiation stage or the planning stage of the project
04:06 - So, here it can take a long time to break down the project
04:09 - So, because planning is also part of reporting or communication
04:13 - We can spend a lot of time on this to gather the right people
04:17 - So, we create a project plan for the whole project, which is a high-level plan
04:21 - And we can have other documents as well, like the other typical important document that people would expect from this would be
04:28 - a Business Case which gives us the business justification for the project
04:33 - So, we need those documents at the beginning of the project
04:36 - Then during the project, when we go into that maybe the common term is monitoring and control phase of the project
04:44 - PRINCE2 calls it controlling a stage where we work within a stage to deliver products which should be used by the users
04:53 - So, there we just need to keep the level above aware of what’s going on and how we’re doing in the middle of a stage
04:59 - So, we want to give them a highlight of where we are within that current stage
05:05 - That’s the level above, that’s the Project Board
05:08 - And guess what the name of that report is. It’s called a Highlight Report, okay?
05:12 - And we will also ask from the teams, “Can you give us a check overview or a checkpoint overview on where you are?”
05:19 - I’m now cheating a little bit because I told you it’s a checkpoint, but that’s the report that we get from the team
05:25 - I could’ve called it a team report as well, you can call it whatever you like, but PRINCE2 refers to it as a Checkpoint Report
05:31 - Then at the end of every stage, we will then have a look back on how we’ve done in the last stage
05:39 - It could be one to two to three months, and we write a little report on this, how we did compared to the stage plan
05:45 - It’s a plan we use to manage a stage and that’s called an End Stage Report
05:48 - And we give that out, we give that up to the Project Board and they will use that to decide as well whether to continue with the next project
05:59 - They expect it and it’s a good way for us to communicate how we do it
06:03 - So, we have to do this kind of report. That’s basically it
06:07 - At the end of the project, we will write a report which describes the whole project and how we performed
06:14 - There’s a nice simple name for that as well. It’s called the End Project Report
06:18 - Which is also another form of communication, giving an overview of what we’ve done and what we’ve learned and so on. Okay
06:26 - Alright. Each kind of report in a different environment will have different ways of working with documents
06:36 - Why is that? Because we’ve got to work with the project environment
06:41 - So, if you work in an environment where they like things very visual
06:45 - Or they always use PowerPoint to represent how they’re doing in a project and not a Word document or something like that
06:53 - Then we’ve got to support this. That’s really we want to tailor the way we’re working to suit the organisation
07:00 - Maybe other companies will like emails to be sent around. That works fine. Okay?
07:06 - Whatever is normal, whatever people like to accept, whatever is the norm, whatever people agree
07:11 - That this is how they want the information
07:14 - There are some other types as well I want to mention
07:18 - You may have heard of information dashboards that’s becoming …
07:22 - It’s a lot more visual, so like information radiators, these are physical big boards
07:27 - here a team will work into and they can have one glance, they can see all the work and how they are progressing
07:35 - So, it’s really a nice way for a team to work together
07:38 - And the Project Manager can be able to get some information or walk into a team
07:42 - And see how they are working and pick up some high-level data from this
07:47 - More and more, actually, as we move on now, a lot more … a little bit more effort is put into information visualisation
08:00 - So, to make it very easy to use, less words, but people can really get an overview of what’s going on in a project
08:07 - And this is a whole domain of expertise on its own
08:10 - But it’s good for a Project Manager to be aware of the different ways to present project information in a visual
08:18 - In a visual way, so that it’s easier for people to read it and understand it. Alright
08:26 - One of the other things we can do as well with communication, which I’ve kind of mentioned already, is meetings and workshops
08:33 - So, why is that? Well, that’s where the Project Manager gets the opportunity
08:38 - To actually facilitate these workshops and by inviting people and work with them
08:43 - So, how best to do that? Well, it’s always good to start with a purpose
08:48 - So, the Project Manager is really the facilitator at that meeting, so they outline a purpose
08:53 - Let’s say, they want to solve a problem or they want to create a description, a new product description for a new deliverable
09:00 - So, they say, okay, well, what’s the purpose of this product? And they put that on the board. Okay?
09:05 - So, that’s agreed with everybody and everybody is aware of what the purpose is
09:10 - And then they can have suggestions from people around the room
09:14 - And it’s very easy to say if a suggestion from a person fits within that purpose or not, and I will tell you why
09:23 - As a facilitator, you can never say to a person that’s a crap suggestion or a bad suggestion. You cannot do that
09:30 - But you can use the purpose as like a third party and go like, “Okay, that suggestion.”
09:35 - “Let’s have a look to see how it fits with the purpose. Maybe not.”
09:40 - So, we can put that a little bit to the side for the moment and then take the next idea
09:44 - But when you read back the purpose to the person, the person will already know that that doesn’t fit
09:49 - And it really helps to improve the communication within the flow on the project
09:53 - And the facilitator can remain positive in the project as well
09:59 - There’s also something called Park It. So, when someone comes up with an idea
10:03 - That doesn’t make sense or wants to go into detailed discussion or something
10:07 - You say, “Okay, great, that really needs attention.”
10:12 - “So, can we park that now and we can come back and discuss it later.” Okay?
10:17 - So, you’re not telling the person it’s bad or go away
10:20 - You’re saying, “No, no. We will take that outside” and then you can keep the meeting on track because that’s what you want to do
10:26 - And asking good questions, of course, is really important for a facilitator because then you get input from everybody
10:33 - There’s one more point on facilitation which I’d like to mention
10:38 - Is that sometimes you can have very quiet people in the workshop
10:43 - So if you know that some people are quiet, you can actually talk to them beforehand
10:48 - And just remind them to speak up or get their input on what they think
10:52 - And then encourage them to speak up to get involved
10:56 - Because the more you do that, then they will do it themselves and you’ll bring them much more into the project
11:02 - We wish to allow the loudest person in the room from taking over the whole workshop, we don’t want that to happen
11:10 - Another idea is to use like a talking stick or something which you throw at a person
11:15 - And you say, “Okay, you can talk” and that person has the floor for 30 seconds
11:19 - And then he throws it to somebody else and then that person has the floor
11:22 - It’s all a way of getting everyone to work together and everyone have their say. Great
11:29 - There’s one very or there’s one very good technique as well I haven’t mentioned yet, so now is the time
11:36 - And that’s called Wisdom of the Crowds
11:39 - So, this is where you will work with a wider group of people with diverse options
11:45 - And together they can come up with better decisions or a better way of working
11:52 - And this is much better than trying to work with a small number of people in a group
11:56 - So, you open it out to this wider community, so you get in more knowledge
12:01 - It’s a really nice concept and you can look this up later if you wish
12:06 - And now I’ve mentioned facilitation and good facilitation, of course, is really key
12:11 - There’s another tip I want to give you with facilitation
12:14 - And that’s from the facilitator’s point of view and that’s to avoid anchoring
12:18 - So, what do I mean by that? Well, don’t be giving your own points
12:22 - So, ask the question, but don’t make suggestions. You ask the question and then you stop talking
12:28 - So, let me give you a bad example. Okay?
12:33 - So, you are discussing to say, “Okay, we have to have a budget for this and I’d like to get that budget down to below €5000,”
12:41 - and then you leave it at that. Then you’ve anchored everybody in the room to look for solutions within below €5000
12:50 - But the question should be how best to do this?
12:53 - If it’s going to cost more than €5000, then we should be spending that money. Okay?
12:58 - So, leave the questions open and stop anchoring
13:01 - Now let me give you a bit more information on communication to stakeholders
13:06 - I’m kind of going over some stuff I’ve done, but from a different point of view
13:10 - So, as already mentioned, a stakeholder analysis is done early in the project
13:15 - That’s where we have that mind map of people and this gives an overview on who the different stakeholders are
13:21 - And then you can decide on the following. Alright.
13:25 - One is how best to communicate with these people, the frequency of communication and who should be reporting to them as well
13:36 - And PRINCE2 suggests a different document to have an overview on this
13:42 - And it’s an approach document, so they call it the Communication Management Approach, so that’s where you will put this data
13:49 - And as you can see, there is a strong relationship between communication and stakeholders
13:55 - Because we need to know who the stakeholders are to communicate with them
14:01 - So, I think I’ve covered everything so far that I wanted to say to do with communication
14:08 - Perhaps just a quick reminder of the documents again
14:11 - So, at the beginning we have that Project Brief, then we have the Project Plan
14:17 - Which gives an overview on what we do, and then the frequency of reports that we do internally in the project
14:23 - Those would be the Highlight Reports to the Project Board
14:27 - At the end of the stage, we have that End Stage Report and so on
14:32 - And we keep the Business Case up-to-date because that’s a very good communication document
14:36 - Which describes the business justification of the project
14:40 - Great. So that’s it

Quiz

What makes up communication?
Why is planning considered part of communication?
Does PRINCE2 suggest the layout for reports, and why?
Give some examples of how a project manager may give a status (highlight) report to the project board during the project.
What is the name of the report created by the project manager at the end of each stage and given to the project board?
In which document may you find the following information?
- Overview of stakeholders
- Frequency and type of communication
- Aim of communication to stakeholders
Which PRINCE2 documents are used for communication?

Lesson 09: Communications

Quiz

Contact your trainer to ask questions