Your project communication plan is the blueprint to success for any project. They cite that
most projects fail because they have a really poor communication plan or none at all. And in
this video, I'm going to share with you how to create an excellent project communication plan.
And if you want to be a Project Ninja, I need you to stay tuned to the end of this video, because I
have something really cool for you; an amazing checklist and download as to why projects fail.
Hi, if you're new here, welcome, my name is Adriana Girdler. And on this channel,
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So if you're excited about learning how to create an awesome project communication plan, like this
video is it tells YouTube that we're giving you great content and let's get to it. Communication
plan 101. Okay, what is a project communication plan? It actually is a document that lays out
all the types of communication that you're going to have within your project. And it also lays out
who are the stakeholders who are going to receive that type of communication. Now stakeholders,
don't forget, range from anyone within your team, all the way out to, let's say, senior executives
who just on the peripheral edge, it could also be the end user of that project deliverable.
Now, why is this so important? You're probably saying to yourself, "Adriana, I am so busy.
Seriously? You want me to do a communication plan on top of all the other plans I have to do?"
The answer is yes, absolutely. I'm telling you, it's going to save a lot of headaches
and heartaches within your project. Now, good communication really does equate to good project
success. How many times have you been on a project that people assume stuff? It really does hurt the
project. So that is why it is so critical for you as a project manager or a project lead to ensure
you have a really good, strong communication plan. What's in a communication plan?
Good news for you, I actually have an example for you and we're going to walk through it. Let's go.
So here's your project communication plan. It really is a summary document of all the types
of communications you are going to be doing within your project during the execution phase
of everything. So this is a little summary. It's a matrix. I do mine in a PowerPoint. You can do
it in a Word document, whatever is going to suit your needs. There's no right or wrong. It really
is just summarizing how you're going to do your communication to all of your project stakeholders.
So let's talk about each section here, so you understand what exactly you do in it.
So communication method. This is a type of communication. You really
have to think it through. How am I going to communicate with people? And not everybody
deserves the same type of communication. You're definitely going to be talking to
your project team a lot differently than you're going to be talking to your steering committee,
than to senior executives, even to the department or manager, who's going to be receiving
your deliverable, and how you're going to communicate to them is so much different.
Your communication purpose is why is this type of communication being sent?
You really need to have an understanding of this as this is going to help you understand a whole
bunch of other aspects like content and frequency and stuff like that.
You're going to also say who's going to create the content, so this is content creation. A lot of
times when it comes to communication, it usually falls on the shoulders of the project manager,
but sometimes it has to be other individuals, so this is where you're going to really lay it.
Content confirmation. Who's going to check it? So how do you know that the information has gone out
is correct? Now, for some instances, it doesn't matter about content creation because it's
staying within the project team and it's not being distributed or disseminated to anybody
else. But if it is, you want to make sure that those things are checked and everything is okay
from a standpoint of acceptability, from communication standards, company standards,
things of that nature. Content distribution, and recipients. So who's going to send it out, and who
will receive it? Again, not all communication is going to be sent from the same individual.
I may have an announcement that I created and that I need the president of the organization to
send on my behalf from a project communication standpoint. If I want to give an announcement
to an organization of what's going on. Again, it really is dependent on your type
of communication. Additional comments, so those are your attachments, who needs to be CC'd and
method to check understanding. How do you know that your communication was read and understood?
This does not have to be detailed. This does not have to be complex.
Just a simple outline summary sheet can make a huge world of a difference as to how successful
you're going to be with your project. Because I've said this before, communication is the heartbeat
to a really good successful project. So now what I want to show you is I want to share
with you some types of communication. This is not an exhaustive list, all right? It's not.
It's just an example so you can have an understanding as to what are some of the things.
So let's look at some of this in a little bit more detail. So we have a project SharePoint
site, Microsoft Teams, we have a work breakdown, structure and action plan. We have core team
meetings, project status update. So you can have a lot more stuff in here. You can actually lay
out every type of meeting you're going to have. You can actually lay out even change
management aspects as to how are you going to make announcements to end users depending on what your
project is. But again, for sake of simplicity, I just want to share with you a few so I can explain
how you fill the rest out. So let's take a look at project SharePoint site and go into a little more
detail, because again, I do mine in a PowerPoint. I slip it into my charter and as a project
manager, this is my job to decide how is communication going to be
unfolding in this project? And there may be some instances where you want to bring in your team to
ask them for some feedback, particularly if you're going into a lot of in-depth change management
aspects, which are talking about end users and the communication and training that you need for them.
But if you take my Slay Project Management course, which I've put the link underneath this video,
I actually talk about all of that in great detail, so I'm not going to go into it here.
So if you want more information, definitely check out that link. So let's talk about this
project SharePoint site. I'm a big believer in having a central location and for us,
why is this communication even being done? Because it is the central place of our project.
It's where we have all our documentation. We track everything, we even communicate in it. And so,
who's going to create this content for the SharePoint site? Well, this document uploads,
and it's the manager, the project manager and the project team who's going to do this.
And who's going to check the content? Well WBS, which is my action plan, I check that
content and for documents, everybody else does. Now under content distribution and recipients,
there's no content to be sent, only uploaded and updated by everybody, and that the recipients is
just the project team. Remember what I said earlier, every single piece of communication
doesn't necessarily have to be distributed to every single stakeholder. You can have specific
pieces or types of communications for specific stakeholders. That's absolutely acceptable.
And then we're not having any attachments and how do we know that everyone read and understood
is we're having an assumption that people are actually following our ways of working,
so that's one type of communication method. It's not your traditional communication method,
but it definitely is how this project is communicating. We're really using it
as a point of reference and information. So let's talk about Microsoft teams. This here,
if we take a look over at this column is for every single stakeholder. This is where we're
communicating and we're tracking status, and we're having conversations and video screen sharing,
and we're doing this to keep everyone in the loop, so everyone can have the ability to do it.
No one necessarily has to manage it. It's the conversation you start
in the posts and with chats, and it's a lovely way to ensure that everyone is really kept in the loop
in real time, so that's something else we're doing as part of our project communication plan. Now
your action plan. Some people may not think to put the action plan, because a lot of times when
we think of communication plans, we're thinking outside of our project team, we're thinking of
the end users. And yes, you can definitely do this. What I'm showing you here really is more of
internal project communication, ways of working. But it's just as important as our external ones,
which is usually to the end user or the individual department who is receiving the deliverable.
So why do I put my action plan here? Well, as I said before, I have a course, Slay Project
Management and I use a WBS very heavily. It is the heartbeat of the project
and I not only use it to track tasks, but I use it to communicate as well on status.
I do not hold status update meetings. We actually use a WBS to be monitoring all of that,
and that's why this is part of our communication is because we have to have an idea as to how we
are going to go about using it. And we use it with a color coding system and a comment column,
where based on those tasks, updates can be given, I can ask questions and then mark my comments in
green so that my team now knows that I've just spoken to them and vice versa. They can speak to
me by making their comments orange, and it really is an amazing tool and a simple tool,
actually. You don't need software or anything like that just Excel spreadsheet that everyone
can utilize and use and be involved with. It's a really great accountability tool. But it
is part of my project communication. We have core team meetings. Now you can have as many meetings
as you want here, but you can see exactly who I've included in on the meetings, the expectations
of them. And just for the last example I want to show you is project status updates,
frequency monthly. So this, again, if you take a look at our content distribution
column and recipients, every stakeholder can get this. I'm the one, as a project manager creating
the content with some of my team leads. I'm confirming it. We're giving them monthly updates,
and I am assuming people have read it. I'm not going to follow-up with them in it,
but they have access through emails, and SharePoint sites, and things like that,
depending on how I'm going to house my update. But here is a project communication plan,
very simple, very straightforward. You as a project manager create this,
but it's so worthwhile because it lets everybody know how things are going to unfold.
How to use your communication plan. Like I said in the example, you're going to slip it
into your charter and you're going to present it at your project kickoff meeting. Now, if you
want more information on charters and project kickoff meetings, just go to YouTube search
Adriana Girdler, Project Kickoff because I have a video specifically on that or Adriana Girdler,
Charters because I have a video on that. Now it's really imperative that by doing it at this point
in time, you're basically setting everything up from scratch and actually at the start in a very
positive way, you're communicating already. You can set up all your meetings. You can
already direct people to the SharePoint site, all of that amazing stuff, which is just
going to ensure your success. Remember, project communication or just communication in general
is what is going to ensure that everyone is on board, no assumptions are being made and
you're actually going to deliver really well on that project goal. Now, if you want even
more tips on how to be a Project Ninja like I told you at the beginning of this video
here for you is chocked full of information, and I put it in the link underneath this YouTube video.
So I promise you, please go get it, and I promise you, it's just filled with amazing stuff. Whether
you do projects or not, this is just really good for business in general, so please check it out.
If you learn something new in this video, please give this video a thumbs up, share it with
everyone. We really appreciate it because it helps our community grow, giving you more great content.
On that note, if you have any comments, do you do project communication plans?
Have you seen some really good ones? Maybe some bad ones? Do you have any other suggestions that
you would put in it? Let me know in the comments below. Until the next video, see you later.