Chapter 10: Project Communications Management
1. Project members should either have strong technical skills or soft skills.
a. True
b. Fals
e
ANSWER: False
RATIONALE: Feedback: For projects to succeed, every project team member needs both types
of skills, and needs to develop them continuously through formal education and
on-the-job training.
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: Difficulty: Moderate
REFERENCES
:
p.391
LEARNING O
BJECTIVES:
INFO.SCHW.14.70 - LO: 10-1
NATIONAL ST
ANDARDS:
United States - BUSPROG: Technology
TOPICS: The Importance Of Project Communications Management
KEYWORDS: Bloom's: Knowledge
2. Adding more people to a project that is falling behind schedule often causes more setbacks because of the increased
complexity of communications.
a. True
b. Fals
e
ANSWER: True
RATIONALE: Feedback: Many top managers think they can just add more people to a project
that is falling behind schedule. Unfortunately, this approach often causes more
setbacks because of the increased complexity of communications.
POINTS: 1
DIFFICULTY: Difficulty: Moderate
REFERENCES
:
p.392
LEARNING O
BJECTIVES:
INFO.SCHW.14.71 - LO: 10-2
NATIONAL ST
ANDARDS:
United States - BUSPROG: Communications
TOPICS: Keys To Good Communication
KEYWORDS: Bloom's: Comprehension
3. People have different personality traits that often affect their communication preferences.
a. True
b. Fals
e
ANSWER: True
RATIONALE: Feedback: It is important to understand individual and group preferences for
communications. People have different personality traits that often affect their
communication preferences.
Cengage Learning Testing, Powered by CogneroPage 1
Another important tool for managing project communications is performance reporting. Performance reporting keeps stakeholders informed about how resources are being used to achieve project objectives. It also motivates workers to have some progress to report. Performance reports are normally provided as status reports or progress reports. Many people use the two terms interchangeably, but some people distinguish between them as follows:
- Status reports describe where the project stands at a specific point in time. It addresses where the project stands in terms of meeting scope, time, and cost goals. How much money has been spent to date? How long did it take to do certain tasks? Is work being accomplished as planned? Status reports can take various formats depending on the stakeholders’ needs.
- Progress reports describe what the project team has accomplished during a certain period. Many projects have each team member prepare a monthly report or sometimes a weekly progress report. Team leaders often create consolidated progress reports based on the information received from team members.
Selecting the Appropriate Communication Methods and Media
There are three broad classifications for communication methods:
i. Interactive Communication – as the name implies, two or more people interact to exchange information via meetings, phone calls, or video conferencing. This method
is usually the most effective way to ensure common understanding.
ii. Push Communication – information is sent or pushed to recipients without their request via reports, e-mails, faxes, voice mails, and other means. This method ensures that the information is distributed, but does not ensure that it was received or understood.
iii. Pull Communication – information is sent to recipients at their request via Web sites, bulletin boards, e-learning, knowledge
repositories like blogs, and other means.
Controlling Communications
It involves monitoring and controlling project communications to ensure that stakeholder communication needs are met.
Keys to Good Communications:
Project managers say they spend as much as 90 percent of their time communicating. The key important concepts are:
a. Focusing on individual and group communication needs
b. Using formal and informal methods for
communicating
Oral communication also helps build stronger relationships among project personnel and project stakeholders. People like to interact with each other to get a true feeling for how a project is going. Research has indicated that in face-to-face interaction, 58 percent of communication is through
body language, 35 percent is through how the words are said, and a mere 7 percent is through the actual spoken content.
c. Providing important information in an effective and
timely manner
d. Setting the stage for communicating bad news, and
e. Understanding communication channels.
Another important aspect of communications is the number of people involved in a project. As the number increases, the complexity of communication increases because there are more channels or pathways through which people can communicate. You can use the following simple formula to determine the number of communication channels as the number of people involved in a project increases:
Example:
Two people have one
communication channel:
Good communicators consider many factors before deciding how to distribute information, including the size of the group, the type of information, and the appropriate communication medium. People often send e-mail messages that are quickly written and therefore not as carefully planned as they should be.
Communication is the oil that keeps
everything working properly.