One of the most common complaints employees have about an organization is the lack of communication. Whether it is between the developer and tester, the executive and the Project Manager, or the maintenance team and customer support, clear communication is vital to a successful project. Poor communication can lead to numerous issues including, but certainly not limited to, incomplete requirements, unapproved changes, cost overruns, schedule delays and even failure to obtain client sign-off.

If you are a Project Manager, or a team member of an ongoing project, ask yourself this question: Does my project have a Communications Plan? I would be willing to bet that the majority of you answered “no”. Communication Plans are not only important because they document how to communicate with stakeholders, but they also force you to think through the process of the entire project. How will approval of the Project Charter be communicated? How will requirements be distributed to the development team? Who should be notified of requirement changes? Who approves test scripts and quality measures? Where will this plan be stored? Where can someone access different types of information? These are just a few questions that should be answered when developing a Communication Plan.

As you can see, a lot of questions need to be answered. Plus, there will be numerous stakeholders who need to receive and respond to communications distributed during a project. However, be careful not to over-communicate. You do not want to distribute information to individuals that have no use for it. Think of it as the boy who cried wolf. If you send out too many communications to non-interested parties they just may start assuming that your communications do not apply to them. Then, of course, they will “miss” the piece of information that is critical to them. This can be a very tricky balancing act.

Be sure you can answer the following questions:
- Who will need information? You may literally have dozens of stakeholders that need information in some form.
- What information do they need? This is a crucial question. As noted above, you do not want to bombard stakeholders with information they deem useless.
- When do they need this information? Maybe it’s a weekly status meeting, maybe it’s as an event occurs. Be sure to brainstorm on how frequently different types of information should be distributed.
- How will they receive it? This may be as simple as dropping by someone’s desk, or as formal as a written, executive approved, contract update.