Project Management: Communication Plan

This document discusses the development of a communication plan for a project on developing a mobile application for a banking firm. It includes an overview of the purpose of the communication plan, communication message and delivery matrix, communication guidelines for email, text, and meetings, and the escalation process for resolving communication issues. References are also provided.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management: Communication Plan
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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7. Communications Plan
The project of developing a mobile application for a banking firm needs development of
a communication plan, so that the issues and concerns can be easily communicated to all the
members and stakeholders of the project team (Heagney, 2016). The communication plan that is
developed for this particular project is discussed in the sections below.
7.1. Overview/Purpose
The main purpose of developing a communication plan is to provide a relevant and
accurate project information to all the major stakeholders of the project. Effective
communication is needed within a project team in order to accomplish a particular work with
cooperation from all the stakeholders associated with a project (Marchewka, 2014).
Development of a project communication plan provides a framework of managing and
coordinating all the communication processes running within a project team (Heldman, 2018). A
communication plan for the said project is being prepared that possesses the details of the
audience in the communication plan, message, project delivery method, frequency of delivery
and communicator. It is expected that the entire project team will be following this
communication plan to communicate the project needs, project status and the project issues, with
the project team and the stakeholders of this project.
7.2. Communication Message and Delivery (Matrix)

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Audience Message Delivery Method Delivery
Frequency
Communicator
Regulatory Bodies Project Plan and status
reporting
Meeting Weekly Project Manager
Project Manager Project Specifications
and Success Criteria
Email Monthly Project Sponsor and
Project Owner
Project Team Project Updates Email and Meeting Bi-weekly Project Manager
Vendors/Suppliers Resource Needs and
materials required
Face to face meeting and email Weekly Project Manager
Project Committee Project status reports Face to Face Meeting Weekly Project Manager
Business Partners Project Progress Email Monthly Project Manager
Project Client/Banking
Firm
Project Status and
Project progress
Email Monthly Project Manager
Regulatory bodies Issues in Project Meeting Weekly Project Team
7.3 Communications Guidelines
A communication plan in a project should possess a specific set of guidelines that is to be
followed by the project team members for communication. As indicated in the matrix above,
communication among the team members and the stakeholders of the project is mainly
conducted in form of email or text or meeting. Therefore, it is necessary to design a set of
guidelines that will ensure that participants of the communication follows a planned or structured

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approach. The communication guidelines for developing a software for banking firm project is
indicated below-
Communication Guidelines—E-mail, Text:
1) Reply all option should be avoided in communication
2) Use of simple words in communication message is expected
3) The communication through email or text should display confidence about the message being shared
4) No redundant messages are to be forwarded
5) The messages shared should have a clear purpose
6) The emails sent should be specific and brief
Communication Guidelines—Meetings:
1) Communication though meeting should have a pre published agenda, prior to meeting request. The agendas of
the meeting should accompany the outlook of the meeting request.
2) Meetings should be planned and pre informed to all the major stakeholders and the participants of the meeting.
3) Communication through meetings should involve a specific issue
4) Meeting requests should be approved by the project owner and only after that any official meeting can be
conducted by the project team
5) Meetings should include documentation of meeting minutes
.
7.4. Escalation Process
Escalations are considered to be an essential part of project management. It is a process
of calling upon the higher levels of project leadership for resolving an issue in the project. Issues
in the communication can arise while implementation of a project. Escalating the communication
issues are necessary in order to get a workable solution to the problem with an acceptance of the
project slippage (Eskerod & Jepsen, 2016). The impact of the project slippage on the project
implementation process should be communicated to major stakeholders of the project. Escalating
an issue to higher authority is necessary in order to resolve the issue or the conflict that might
arise during a communication process.

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The escalation is project manager generally follows a planned approach (Guo et al.,
2014). A formal mechanism is followed for escalation and it is led by the project manager.
Project managers need to act on the escalation as soon as possible.
In this particular project, every team member should be given an opportunity to escalate
the communication problem. The problem should at first be reported to the immediate senior of
the project team in a form of an official email. The team members should be confident about
escalating an issue to the project team so that the issue can be managed and eliminated in an
effective manner.

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References
Eskerod, P., & Jepsen, A. L. (2016). Project stakeholder management. Routledge.
Guo, F., Chang-Richards, Y., Wilkinson, S., & Li, T. C. (2014). Effects of project governance
structures on the management of risks in major infrastructure projects: A comparative
analysis. International Journal of Project Management, 32(5), 815-826.
Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley &
Sons.
Marchewka, J. T. (2014). Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.