Importance of Communication in Maintaining Quality and Timely Delivery of Project Activities

This research proposal highlights the significance of communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of different project activities. It discusses the aims of the research project, reviews previous research from various literatures, proposes an outline plan for conducting the project, and makes a critical discussion on the proposal.

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Importance of communication
(Maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities)
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note

1IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Executive summary
A good communication strategy always leads to effective project management. It denotes exchange
of different information originating from one specific point of a given project to the other. This
research proposal demonstrates vitality of communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery
of different project activities. It has analyzed discusses the aims of a research project. Previous
research articles from various literatures are reviewed. An outline plan is suggested for conducting
this project. Further, a discussion is made out of this study.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................3
1. Aims of this research project:............................................................................................................3
1.1. Modifications to a theory to enhance its value or validity in a particular context:....................4
1.2. The scope of high aims:..............................................................................................................5
2. Review of previous research from various literatures:......................................................................6
3. Outline plan of the research proposal:...............................................................................................8
4. Critical discussion on this proposal:................................................................................................10
4.1. The rationale of the topic:.........................................................................................................10
4.2. Difficulties or uncertainties foresaw on communication in maintaining quality and timely
delivery of project activities:...........................................................................................................11
4.3. Suitable alternatives to proposed methods:..............................................................................14
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................15
References:..........................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction:
Effective communication leads to better project management. Communication is about
speaking to and hearing from people. This also includes understanding the entire message. It refers
to the exchange of data. This is done from one particular stage of the project to the other point
efficiently.
However, various difficulties are faced while implementing that because of different factors
such as nature of a project, organizational structure and so on. “Project management
communication” is a practical skill and it can never be perfected. However, it is always open to
development.
The following research proposal considers the significance of communication in maintaining
quality and in-time delivery of different project activities. At first, it discusses the aims of a research
project. Then prior researches done in various literatures are reviewed. Next, an outline plan is
proposed regarding conducting this project. Lastly, a critical discussion is made out of this proposal.
1. Aims of this research project:
Communication is regarded as a crucial element for every project that are well-managed.
There are primarily two main groups of people with whom the project manager requires to assure
effective and a very clear communication. They are the project team and stakeholders (Kerzner &
Kerzner, 2017). The aim of the research project is highlighted below.
 Firstly, projects are intended to be sponsored by an element of business along with a stake in
every outcome.

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 Next, they are presumably to be presented on different project board that sets some
objectives for projects and controls development in due time.
 Providing regular updates to every stakeholder and ensuring communication with them is
complete, transparent and consistent.
 Project managers must assure that everybody is aware of what they can achieve and requires
reporting on progress to project board and projecting sponsors.
It must be understood that there have been many scopes of things that might be going wrong
as any smart communication is not maintained and established.
1.1. Modifications to a theory to enhance its value or validity in a particular context:
Project manager and a team are able to identify communications that are required with the
help of stakeholder analysis theory. Communication management plan could be deployed to
document and organize processes, expectations and types of communications. For this modifications
could be done in the following sectors (Heldman, 2018).
 The first one is stakeholder communication requirement for communicating proper
information as demanded by stakeholders.
 Next one is the information regarding what is needed to be communicated. This has been
including content, details along with expected format and so on.
 Next one is detailed on how required data flows through a project to proper people. This
structure of communication must help in documenting the location where various data can
originate. This also includes the idea to whom information could be sent and what modality
the data is acceptable (Schwalbe, 2015).
 Then there is the schedule of when different kinds of communication can take place.

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 Processes of escalation and timeframes to move issues upwards in any organization are other
modifications. This occurs as they could not be resolved at lower strata.
1.2. The scope of high aims:
The scope of above-discussed aims is analyzed keeping the whole industry sector in mind.
Scopes Discussion
Political scopes Whenever many groups get involved, there exist scopes of some vested
interests. This also includes different power games getting under path of
communication. As soon as political players are identified, project managers
can undertake steps for gaining confidence and buy-in over project goals.
Thus, it helps to eliminate political obstacles towards project
communications (Heagney, 2016). Hence, it can be best settled at the level
where they originate. However, it must be kept in mind those escalating
political issues upwards hierarchy never help. It could even be
counterproductive.
Cultural scopes Organizational cultures that are often referred to as the total of values and
assumptions held commonly under any organization require being
efficiently dealt. Such difficulties could be eased by project managers
through knowing divergences in attitudes between involved parties. This
acts as intermediaries for facilitating communication (Carvalho & Rabechini
Junior, 2015). Differences between regional cultures come to play within
different geographically distributed or virtual teams,.
Linguistic scopes Linguistic requires being understood considering a sense of specific terms

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utilized by various disciplines of marketing, IT, accounting and so on. As
specialists from different sectors get together for discussing project-related
concerns, there are tendencies for every side to make those assumptions.
This can be done regarding c general understanding of specialized technical
languages. It can lead to incomplete or incorrect communication (Todorović
et al., 2015). Hence practical techniques might act as the scope to resolve
different barriers as discussed that are required to be implemented and
identified. Stating otherwise, sharing of communication is the smartest
method at any level of the project conducted.
2. Review of previous research from various literatures:
Purpose of communication management plan is to describe methodologies that could be
utilized to manage communications under any project. It is the output of communication
management process detailing particular communication frequencies, timelines, recipients, events,
products and additional pertinent communications information. The project management
deliverables are also referred to as essential communication tools by Haimes (2015). However, under
most scenarios, communication management is always a straightforward and simple delivery-
enablement process. It uses a relatively standard toolkit. Besides, under the first change and
initiatives of business transformation, engagement and communication represent primary focus of
project and notable proportion of project work effort.
Various instances can be given from the articles that have influenced this research. Guo et al.
(2014) mentions that an organization that embarked on company-wide up-gradation of desktops. As
technical employees arrived for installing new technologies, employees asked the reason to do that.

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Thus this updating has been a painful experience for both customer personnel and providers. In
another case at the beginning of software development project, client queried project manager for a
written and weekly status report. Then project manager accommodated willingly. As this project gets
finished within budget, on time and to specification, the client fills out a satisfaction survey, where
he reported his dissatisfaction with his project. Again, as shown by Ramazani and Jergeas (2015), a
vendor organization consisted of four-hour standard to react to reported malfunctions in their critical
components of the hardware. Then, as clients discovered to their dismay, the first time they called
about any malfunction. Further, another instance is shown by Stanciu, Condrea & Zamfir (2016),
where a network management group updated networking technology utilized by their internal
customers. Most of them were largely dissatisfied with service delivery of groups. Here customers
have also been asked to be involved in this effort. Hence, network group got compiled. Moreover,
nevertheless, customers stayed unhappy. A well-liked manager has stopped by their cubicles of
various employees as shown by Webb (2017). This has been a high-pressure project for seeing how
they have been doing and offering encouragement. As mentioned by Taylor, (2015), IT personnel at
an organization were eager to restore their once-positive reputation that is implemented on various
service improvements. They have been justifiably proud and wished a huge leap towards customer
satisfaction. Unfortunately, judging from various survey results, customers have hardly cared and
noticed.
However, there have been various gaps in the current literature that this research must fulfill.
While communication gaps rise between staffs, outcomes often lead to confusion, misaligned
priorities, indecisive actions and unclear motives. These communication gaps are technological
needing updating the equipment of office computers. Further, the article does not mention about
personal problems that can arise from differences in personality. Moreover, the articles overlook the
example of next generation who are more inclined to depend on technological devices regarding

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communication. Besides, the previous generation has been shying away from this kind of
communication at work. Thus, irrespective of reason, bridging of these gaps needs extensive
assessment of issues and proper steps for rectifying the issues.
3. Outline plan of the research proposal:
For conducting this research market research is done interviewing employees from various
organizations. This falls under primary qualitative data analysis considering communication in
maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities.
This qualitative market research must take into account feelings and opinions of employees
as far as maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities is considered. This research
must go beyond employee’s mind to fathom what they have seen to lack or they have genuinely
liked the project implementation.
The primary role of a type of research is to provide businesses with a detailed view of
consumers and customers for satisfying their needs better. This process is integral to able to compete
with other payers under the same industry and helping to assess things like market needs and
competition. This research should make use of statistical and analytical methods and techniques for
gathering and interpreting data in an organized fashion. It can also include opinion, social study and
many more. It is vital for current rising complicated business scenario.
The research must retrieve ideas of necessities of customers and some factors that could be
examined by this process are given below. This should verify the following needs.
Needs Discussion
Trends in a market It denotes movements of a market within a particular period.

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Segmentation of market It is the division of a market into subgroups with same features. It
is required to develop a distinction between personalities, genders,
choices, demographics and so on (Mok, Shen & Yang, 2015).
Available information The employees should be asked about prices of various products
that are present in the market.
The effectiveness of
marketing
This must take into account product research, risk analysis,
competitor analysis, customer analysis and so on.
The research would be beneficial for following fields:
Tapping opportunities It is one of the most significant advantages to conduct market
research enabling to find out different opportunities in the market
and making that possible for tapping into them efficiently. For
instance, it is helpful to find whether the product has been suitable
for audiences who are targeted (Jónsdóttir, 2016). As there is no
targeted audience found, market research helps in identifying the
appropriate audience.
Encouraging
communication
The research is helping to find out best possible methods for
communicating with customers. As results are obtained, the dislikes,
likes, personalities, nature of the audiences are known. It helps to connect
easily with them and then reach out to them.
Minimizing risks Another advantage of this research is that it would be helpful for
business to reduce risks by considering actions over certain subjects. For
instance, it is useful to incorporate particular qualities to products that

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might reach out to various people. This declines scopes for the products
not going to be used.
Establishing trends
and standing of a
market
Market alters continuously and continuously. In such case, through
market research helps in creating current trends and formulate plans as
per as existing customer requirements and needs.
Finding particular
problems
As market research brings about customer reactions, preferences,
choices and many more business can change product as it is under
designing or manufacturing process. It has been simpler to seek problems
and work on them as one has research outcomes in hand.
4. Critical discussion on this proposal:
4.1. The rationale of the topic:
The topic of the importance of communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of
project activities is chosen for various reasons. The factors are discussed below.
Miscommunication:
It is one of the most common problems possessed by businesses. As miscommunication is
avoided, business activities turn out to be more efficient. It often happens at various management
levels for any industry. For example, as any member of senior management issues any memo, it gets
misinterpreted by additional staffs of the organization (de Carvalho, Patah & de Souza Bido, 2015).
For preventing miscommunication, it has been vital to think about what is said and how other parties

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could interpret that. For instance, as the memo is finished writing, it could be read out loud such that
one can slow down and then think about what the others would hear as they understood that.
Benefits:
The topic is chosen because of its various benefits. Firstly, efficient business communication
keeps relationships healthy. It helps in relying on business partners or suppliers as a part of success
for a business. Thus a constant level of interaction is needed to be maintained. This helps in
communicating efficiently, avoiding vendors, clients, employees to make invalid assumptions
harming business. Further, another advantage of efficient business communication is that it is helpful
for saving time. Rather than having to clarify all the things, one can move on after issuing or
receiving orders.
Time Frame:
While trying to develop communication within an industry, it takes little time to develop
systems that work. Every employee is not aware how to communicate with others efficiently. They
require devoting some resources for training, seminars or classes for teaching all the people how to
communicate effectively with others (Brière et al., 2015). As procedures and policies are instituted,
the effective communication process turns out easier.
4.2. Difficulties or uncertainties foresaw on communication in maintaining quality and timely
delivery of project activities:
Difficulties or
uncertainties
Discussion
Practical problems Maximum of national languages already assures daily
communication and it never seems that the function already gets

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taken over by distinct code. Communication problems happen in
specific communication circle like an institution on clients in a wider
sense. Meanwhile, it is needed to differentiate between multilingual
and monolingual corporate communication. Using national language
is beneficial for communication within companies (Fang, Marle &
Xie, 2017). National languages display a similar impact for creating
an effective corporate culture along with communication and
company team.
Employees working under monolingual companies can inter-connect
better with their co-workers. This is because they possess a mutual
language reducing the occurrence of any misinterpretation. This fact
shows a great disadvantage towards external communication of
organizations. This happen between communication with another
company in a given market or various clients residing outside
national markets. Moreover, at a functional level, sharing of similar
language reduces level of potential distortion. This take place in
translating action into language and language into action (Cheruvelil
et al., 2014).
Political problems Political factors have been affecting business that has been provided
with a lot of significance. Various aspects of government policies
have been transforming an industry. Every organization should be
following law. Every manager should see how future legislation
could change the activities. Political scenario has been affecting

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business companies in various ways. It has been adding risk factors
and leading to a substantial loss (Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016).
Political considerations have the power to alter outcomes. It has also
been affecting different government policies. This is done at local
and towards federal level. Additionally, the companies must be
ready to deal with both domestic and the international political
results. Further, many people have been actively opposing
globalization, outsourcing and additional international business
practices. One might lose some customer base as one start trading in
external nations. Further, a company gets involved in various human
right abuses in other countries, without having any idea how these
abuses have been taking place, one might be subject to an onslaught
of mediocre publicity and lost businesses.
Ethical problems For employees to efficiently make sense what business has been
considering ethical practices, it is needed to be efficiently
communicated to staffs. Ethical behavior is required to be delivered
daily to employees and this includes identification of employees
who have been acting ethically. Further, it provides praise to
employees for well-doing jobs. Apart from this, it helps to set ethical
standards for other employees in a business (Golini, Kalchschmidt &
Landoni, 2015).
Much business lacks written policies detailing what is expected of
staffs in the industry. There are several instances where

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communication has been lacking regarding what business believes
about ethical standards. Examples of this include being smart and
honest in contact, method of dealing with customers and staffs fairly
along with reporting ethical violations witnessed by employees.
Many policies have been devoid of outlining results if acting
unethically under small business (Badewi, 2016). This kind of
systems must be signed by employees on their employment
acceptance and approved and reviewed on an annual basis. Since the
idea of ethics has been differing for every people, it is vital that
business must conduct ethics training for every company. This has
been lacking in many organizations. Many employees have been
considering business supplies for personal usage unethically.
Industry must educate employees regarding their ethical standards
through role play and hypothetical scenarios. It has been helping
staffs in identifying what business has been considering unethical
and ethical.
4.3. Suitable alternatives to proposed methods:
Some of the other options have been effective for the above-proposed solutions. They are
analyzed below.
Designing communication
plan
This must help in avoiding problems such as a decrease in
employee productivity, high turnover or rise in absenteeism. It
helps in making recruitment of new associates more
straightforward.

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Connecting changes to
corporate culture
It must help in explaining latest marketing scopes, growth
expectations and reaction of employees.
Anticipating reaction of
employees
This can be done by making a list of various potential responses
and questions.
Keeping messages simple For this crucial message, points are to be shared in plain
language, avoiding jargons and legal terminologies.
Developing communication
schedule
Managers and leaders at every level require in-detailed data
regarding what they share with employees. The messages should
be consistent for avoiding feeding the mill of rumor.
Use of various communication
vehicles
This is to be done by keeping communication flowing through
sharing messages across multiple channels.
Fine-tune communications As the first wave of information gets released, follow-up
messages must have carefully listened that requires being shared.
This includes points that need clarification along with quickly
addressing concerns and issues.
Conclusion:
It is seen from the above study that business communication is an essential element to run
and manage businesses. Employees, managers and owners should efficiently convey thoughts and
ideas to other people who are working in companies out outside stakeholders of an industry. Various
kinds of communication processes are available for people working in a business environment.
Every method has been offering people with scoped to opt for how they can convey a message and

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develop particular communication style for different receivers. Business kind of communication is
considered as a general language for various companies irrespective of the expertise area. The report
shows that the primary purpose is to improve organizational practices, decreasing errors and then
deliver proper guidance for every team members. However, though it has existed for a very long
time, business communication has enhanced a lot in the past few decades. This series of business
communication types have evolved in the current world that is suitable for various circumstances.

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