PMcrunch

Project Communication plans provide project managers with the opportunity to think through how the various stakeholders and the project team will communicate with one another.  I think a case can be made for thinking a little more broadly about this in today’s Web 2.0 world.

There are many ways of communicating within and outside the project team, and we have created posts about many of them on PMcrunch.  Here are a number of those posts that are less traditioanl, more Web 2.0 oriented (I noticed there is not one on wikis, and will remedy that soon!):

RSS Feeds:  A Tool for Project Communications

Instant Messaging: Close the Communication Gap

How Blog Communication Can Change the Way You Do Business:  6 Observations

Choosing Project Communications:  Think Out of the Box

So, it can be very helpful for the project manager and project team to think through all of the communications needs, channels, and means.  But I have recently become acquainted with the work of Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School, and he talks about "How to Hit the Enterprise 2.0 Bullseye", referring to the range and importance of contacts for networking within an organization.

In this, we can see that within an enterprise, there are many people who could potentially help a knowledge work (i.e. project team member), and also who that project team member could help.  This seems like an area to be considered in our project communication plans.  The question could be something like this:  "How can we connect the greater project team to the greater organization to encourage greater collaboration and connection?"

Typically, I think we focus on “strong” communications within our communications plans.  However, it would seem highly beneficial to also consider and incorporate “weak” communications into our project communication plans.
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John Reiling, PMP
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