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Project Communication Plan Development
Project Management · Chapter 3: Building a Comprehensive Project PlanSection 3.9 · lesson 23 of 7313 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
Planning who gets what information, how, how often, and from whom.
- Analyze each stakeholder's information needs by content, detail, frequency, format, and confidentiality
- Choose push, pull, or interactive communication based on urgency, sensitivity, audience size, and need for dialogue
- Build a communication matrix with one owner per row and an escalation path with a time trigger
- Calculate the number of possible communication channels using n times n minus one, divided by two
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Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,759 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
News That Arrived From the Wrong Source
On an earlier renovation, Marrowfield's library director, Marcus Bell, heard about a delayed shelving delivery from the supplier's own phone call, not from the project. And the front-desk staff first saw their rearranged work area, on the morning they were due to work in it. Several were furious. Nobody had been lazy. So what was missing? Now Dana Reyes is planning the next renovation, and she means to find out.
Purpose
Right Information, People, Time, and Form
What was missing was a communication plan: who receives what information, in what form, how often, from whom, and what happens when a problem must move up. Its purpose: the right information, to the right people, at the right time, in a usable form. Each part can fail on its own. Accurate news can reach the wrong person, arrive three weeks late, or come as a forty-page report to a sponsor who needed one paragraph. Left to habit, communication follows friendship and convenience: people sitting nearby hear everything. A plan replaces that with need.
Three Inputs
Stakeholder Register, RACI, and Organizational Rules
Priya Nair, the planning analyst, gathers three inputs. First, the stakeholder register: who's affected, what they need, and how engaged each should be. A stakeholder who should move from neutral to supportive needs more than status notices. One who just needs to stay informed may need only a short periodic note. Second, the RACI chart. It already names who's consulted or informed about each deliverable, and who's accountable, which suggests who should own the related messages. Third, organizational rules the project didn't choose: a required report template, contract information only to named people, formal decisions in writing. They're cheaper to find before the plan than after.
Requirements Analysis
Five Questions for Every Audience
Communication requirements analysis asks five questions of every register entry: what information, at what level of detail, how often, in what format, and with what confidentiality. Marcus, the director, funds the work. He needs a short weekly summary of cost, schedule and risk, plus immediate word of any threat to the opening date. It's confidential: it includes contract prices. The contractor needs daily or weekly detail, drawings and access times, and a way to ask questions. That calls for an exchange, not a note. The front-desk staff need advance notice of moves and training dates, and a chance to say what won't work in practice. Neighbors need a plain-language notice before noisy work begins, and a way to complain. The needs differ in kind, not just volume. No single status report serves all four.
Sender-Receiver Model
Encoding, Channel, Decoding, Feedback, and Noise
To decide how a message should travel, picture the sender-receiver model. A sender has something to convey to a receiver. The sender encodes the meaning into words, numbers or images. It's transmitted through a channel, like an email, a conversation or a posted notice. The receiver decodes it back into meaning, and feedback, the receiver's response, shows the sender whether the meaning arrived. Noise is anything that distorts the message on the way: a bad audio line, jargon, or an inbox so full the message is never read. The lesson: sending isn't communicating. Only feedback shows whether the receiver understood something close to what you meant. The model is criticized as too mechanical, since receivers actively interpret. Feedback partly answers that. For planning, it's a checklist: when a message fails, at which step did it fail?
Communication Methods
Push, Pull, and Interactive
Methods are classed by who starts the exchange. Push communication is sent to chosen recipients without a request: a weekly status email, a mailed notice. The sender controls delivery, but push doesn't show whether anyone read or understood it. Pull communication puts information where people retrieve it when they choose: a project website, a document library, a dashboard. It suits large audiences and bulky material, if people know to look. Interactive communication is a real-time exchange: a meeting, a call, a workshop. It has the richest feedback, but costs the most time, and needs people available together. Four factors decide. Urgency: how fast must it arrive? Sensitivity: how bad if it's misread or misdirected? Audience size. And the need for dialogue: questions, negotiation, agreement.
Quick Check
A Wall That Cannot Be Built
Quick check. A survey shows the planned wall can't be built as drawn, and work stops tomorrow unless the architect agrees a fix. Which method fits best? Pause, and decide. Interactive. It's urgent, and it needs dialogue: the contractor and architect must ask questions and agree a fix. A pushed note would wait to be read, and a pull website would wait to be found. Neither gets an agreement by tomorrow.
Choosing a Channel
Formal or Informal, Written or Spoken
Then the channel. Formal channels follow rules and leave a record: a signed change request, minutes, a scheduled report. They support accountability, but they're slower. Informal channels, like a hallway chat, are quick and build relationships, but leave no record, so decisions made there are easy to forget or dispute. Written channels give a durable, checkable record. Spoken ones carry tone and allow instant correction. Match channel to message. A decision that commits money is written and formal. A first warning that a deadline's at risk is often spoken first, then confirmed in writing. A message sent through a channel the receiver doesn't use or trust is, for practical purposes, not sent.
Communication Matrix
One Row per Audience, One Owner
Dana gathers these decisions into a communication matrix: one row per audience, with columns for content, method, frequency, owner, and escalation path. Marcus: a one-page weekly summary, pushed, plus same-day notice of any threat to the opening date, because a weekly rhythm alone could let bad news wait six days. The contractor: a weekly site meeting, interactive, because the work needs questions and agreement. Neighbors: a pushed notice at least five working days before noisy work, since they're many, and no dialogue is needed first. Finance: cost reports posted on the first working day of each month, pull, with access restricted, because the content is confidential. Every row has exactly one named owner. When a message is everyone's job, it quietly stops the first week the owner's away.
Completeness Test
Register Describes People, Matrix Describes Actions
The matrix also tests completeness. Every stakeholder in the register appears in some row, or is consciously left out, and every row traces back to the register. Don't confuse the two. The register describes people: who they are, what they want, how engaged they should be. The matrix describes actions: what's sent to them, by what method, by whom, and when. The register is the input; the matrix is the output.
Escalation Path
Time Triggers That Move Problems Up
Each row also needs an escalation path: the route a problem takes to higher levels of authority when it isn't solved where it arose. A workable path defines the levels, like work owner, project manager and sponsor; the time triggers that force a move up; and who is told at each level. Why triggers? Without one, bad news gets held in hope, and by the time it moves up, the options have narrowed. Dana's rule: tell the sponsor when the opening date is expected to slip by more than three working days. Sam Kowalski, the site supervisor, hears that shelving planned for working day 20 will arrive on day 27. The slip is 7 days, more than 3, so Marcus hears within a working day. Had it been day 22, a 2-day slip, Sam would handle it himself and report it in the weekly summary.
Debate
Are Fixed Escalation Triggers Wise
Fixed triggers are disputed. For them: people naturally delay bad news, a stated trigger removes the awkward judgment call, and it protects junior staff from blame for raising alarms. Against: a fixed number can't tell a trivial slip from a serious one, and mechanical escalation floods senior people with minor items. Whether triggers lead to earlier reporting is empirical, and depends on the setting. How much to value predictability over flexibility is a question of values.
Channel Formula
Why Big Teams Need Structure
Here's why big teams need structure. A communication channel, for counting, is one two-way line between a pair of people. Among n people, the number of channels is n times one less than n, divided by two. Each person can talk to every other, but that counts each pair twice. Two people: one channel. Five people: ten. Eight people: twenty-eight. Add a ninth person, and it's thirty-six: eight new channels. At twelve people, it's sixty-six. People rose sixfold from two; channels rose from one to sixty-six. So plans use sub-teams, named leads, regular meetings, and one place for shared information. A hub, where everyone talks through one person, needs only n minus one lines, but overloads the hub. The formula counts possible channels, not messages actually sent, and treats every pair as equal. It's a warning that people add coordination cost, not a precise measure.
Quick Check
Growing a Team From Six to Ten
Quick check. A team of six grows to ten. How many more possible communication channels does it now have? Pause, and decide. Thirty more. Six people have six times five over two: fifteen channels. Ten people have ten times nine over two: forty-five. Forty-five minus fifteen is thirty. Four is the added people, and forty-five is the new total, not the increase.
Completing the Plan
Glossary, Templates, Constraints, and Updates
A matrix alone isn't a complete plan. It also needs a glossary, so everyone decodes the project's terms and abbreviations the same way. Templates for recurring messages, like status summaries and minutes. Constraints, like budget, languages, time zones, or audiences without reliable internet, who can't rely on a pull website. And a process for updating the plan: who may change it, when it's reviewed, and what forces a revision, like a new stakeholder, a scope change, or complaints about late messages. Finally, test the plan on its audiences before relying on it. Show Marcus a sample summary. Ask the front desk if a session time works. That's feedback, applied to the plan.
Back to the Library
Friday Summaries and Front-Desk Sessions
Back to the question: what was missing last time? Not effort. A decision about who needed what, and by which method. This time, Marcus gets a push: five lines every Friday, with any threat to the opening date phoned in the same day. Amara Osei, who leads the front-desk staff, gets interactive sessions before each stage of work, because their cooperation depends on understanding. At the first session, Amara spots that the planned layout blocks the book-return door. Only dialogue would have found that. The trade-off: evening sessions lengthen Dana's week, and Marcus gets less detail than he may later want. Both are recorded, on purpose.
Key Takeaways
Audiences, Methods, Owners, and Channels
To recap. Analyze each audience: what they need, in what detail, how often, in what form, and how confidential. Choose push, pull or interactive by urgency, sensitivity, audience size, and the need for dialogue. Give every row of the matrix one owner, and an escalation path with a time trigger. Channels grow as n times one less than n, over two, so structure communication as teams grow.
About Project Management at UPI Study
Project Management (Business 230) is a self-paced online course of 73 video lessons in 12 chapters, from starting and defining a project to planning, budgets, scheduling tools, proposals, contracts, execution, monitoring, closure, teams and certification. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
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