4.4. Communication Technology
Assessing New Communication Technologies
New technologies for communicating electronically appear with increasing frequency. Using a new technology that is unfamiliar to the team increases the technology complexity, which can cause delays and increase costs. To decide if a new technology should be included in a communications plan, it will likely be your responsibility to seek answers to the following questions and share the results with your team, often in the form of a report comparing your findings:
- Does the new communication technology provide a competitive advantage for the project by reducing cost, saving time, or preventing mistakes?
- Does the project team have the expertise to learn the new technology quickly?
- Does the company offer support such as a help desk and equipment service for new communication technology?
- What is the cost of training and implementation in terms of time and money?
Communication Plan Template
As the Office Administrator, you will likely not be in charge of creating the communications plan, but you will be responsible for following it. Follow these guidelines:
- Identify your stakeholders (to whom).
- Identify stakeholder expectations (why).
- Identify communication necessary to satisfy stakeholder expectations and keep them informed (what).
- Identify the time frame and/or frequency of communication messages (when).
- Identify how the message will be communicated (the stakeholder’s preferred method) (how).
- Identify who will communicate each message (who).
- Document items – templates, formats, or documents the project must use for communicating.
"8.4. Communication and Project Manager" from Essentials of Project Management by Adam Farag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
