Communications Management

Performance Reports – Change Requests

Wednesday, October 14, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP

Performance reports are the prime outputs required of the report performance process. However, there are a couple of other reports that are of vital importance. One is a change request. These outputs are vital for managing changes and hence for managing the project itself. Then the organizational process asset updates are equally important to... »

Performance Reporting

Monday, October 12, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP

To report performance you have to asses the performance of your project first and that’s a very vital task for a project manager. You must be absolutely certain of where you are, to make sure you are on the right track. If not, you need some mid-course corrections and make sure you stay on... »

Information Distribution

Monday, October 12, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Information Distribution

When you distribute information it has to be properly organized information rather than raw data. Thus while you may have a lot of discrete inputs related to the performance of your project, what you want to distribute is if the project is on track. If not, the variance and the impact on project time... »

Performance Reporting – Tools

Sunday, October 11, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP

  There are several tools that one can use in processing the raw information gathered as inputs and to prepare meaningful reports. Several categories of tools can be used successfully to derive meaningful information from the input data. These include variance analysis tools, forecasting methods to forecast time and cost performance in the future etc.... »

Performance Reporting – What to Report?

Saturday, October 10, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Performance Reporting – What to Report?

  The information/documents/data you need to consider for generating the performance reports include project management plan, work performance information, work performance measurements, budget forecasts and organizational process assets. You would use these inputs to generate the required reports for your specific organization. Tools to process these inputs also should be used as much as possible. Project... »

Stakeholder Analysis

Friday, October 9, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP

Stakeholders need to be identified early on in the project life cycle. You need them to buy-in into the success of the project so that you are able to use their influences toward maximizing positive aspects and for minimizing negative impacts on the progress of the project. You classify the stakeholders by their interest,... »

Salience Model

Thursday, October 8, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Salience Model

Salience model is a method for classifying stakeholders and to decide who do matter. The problem faced by project managers is how to choose the right stakeholders and how to prioritize competing claims of their communication needs. Stakeholder salience is decided by the assessment of their power, legitimacy and urgency in the organization. Power... »

Power/Influence Grid

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Power/Influence Grid

As stakeholders can be measured on a power-interest grid, they can also be assessed on another dimension. This could be power-influence grid. Just to have the definitions clear. Power is the measure of the amount of authority a particular stakeholder is able to exercise. Influence measures their active involvement on the project. Power/ Influence Grid ... »

Influence/Impact Grid

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Influence/Impact Grid

Mapping stakeholders on a four segment map that charts their influence and impact is a possible model to classify the stakeholder. This classification is essential to determine their information needs and how to communicate effectively to meet that need. The dimensions used are the influence, or the amount of involvement of a given stakeholder... »

Communication Tools/Technology/Modes

Sunday, October 4, 2009
By Puneet Kuthiala, PMP
Communication Tools/Technology/Modes

We have discussed elsewhere that the communication as a process is prone to noise or barriers to communications. The communication channel creates random corruption of information and even the decoding process can introduce problems. As with electronic communication system one strives to protect the signal or the message as far as possible and try... »