Assessment of Current Communication Plan in Project Management

This report assesses the current communication plan in project management and provides recommendations for improvement. It discusses the importance of effective communication in project management and evaluates the current communication plan for a project on developing an integrated health informatics system. The report compares the communication plan with project management practices and suggests modifications to address loopholes. The recommendations include incorporating flexibility in communication and enabling communication through channels other than the preferred communication channel in case of emergencies.

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

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
1. Assessment of the Current Communication Plan.......................................................................2
2. Comparison of the communication plan with project management practices...........................3
3. Recommendations......................................................................................................................3
4. Justification of the Recommendations........................................................................................4
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................5
References......................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Communication management is one of the most important aspects of project management as
effective project communication is important to weave a link between project manager, project team
and the stakeholders linked with a project. Communication plan is an essential aspect of project
stakeholders’ management as therefore, communication is considered to be an effective tool for
ensuring proper communication flow among the team members [4]. The following report discusses the
communication issues that a particular project had faced and assess the current communication plan
that is proposed for the project. The project of improving the Public Health Informatics had previously
failed due to lack of effective communication among the stakeholders. The following paragraphs
discusses the effectiveness of the communication plan prepared and the recommends and provides
certain recommendations based on that assessment.
1. Assessment of the Current Communication Plan
A project of integration of the public health informatics system is proposed, whose duration is
six to twelve months. In order to successfully execute this project in such a less time, it is essential to
ascertain effective collaboration among all the internal and external stakeholders of the project [3]. The
collaborative methodology that is followed in this particular project involves business process analysis,
analysis of the process redesign and defining the requirements of the project. In successful execution of
this particular project, the project team identified the need of developing a structured communication
plan. The communication plan that is prepared is assessed on basis of its design and functionality. The
current communication plan is prepared by the project manager, which is a positive point of the current
communication. The project manager has an idea of the tasks and the processes that are needed to be
executed in a project along with the details of the stakeholders involved with a project [1]. Therefore,
this particular communication plan involves all the necessary details related to a standard
communication plan. The current communication plan provides all the necessary details of the
stakeholders, their issues, communication methods and communication timings. However, of the
significant issues associated with this particular system is that in order to input all the details, the
complexity of the communication plan has increased to a considerable amount. In the following section
of the report, the communication plan is evaluated on basis of the standard project management
practices.
2. Comparison of the communication plan with project management practices

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As discussed earlier, communication plan is one of the most important factors related to
management of a project. Communication plan establishes the necessary link between the project team
and the stakeholders. Therefore, it is quite essential for a project manager to prepare a sound
communication plan [2]. In this case, the communication plan is developed by the project manager,
which is appropriate in terms of project management [8]. The communication plan, which is under
assessment provides all the necessary details of the major project stakeholders, the issues with the
project stakeholders, the messages to be communication, the vehicle of communication, the format and
the timing [6]. The communication plan therefore prepared, involves all the necessary elements that are
generally defined in project management practices [7]. On assessing the communication plan prepared,
it is found out that all the necessary elements of a communication plan is present in the plan prepared
[5]. Therefore, communication plan that is prepared is quite effective in terms of managing the
collaboration with the project stakeholders.
3. Recommendations
Although the communication that is prepared for the project is quite effective in terms of
establishing the desired collaboration among project manager, project team and the stakeholders of the
project, there are few loopholes, in the prepared plan. The recommendations for addressing those
loopholes are as follows-
Flexibility: The current communication plan distinctly categorizes the messages to be communicated.
This can give rise to a major problem as the project team or the stakeholders might find it difficult to
communicate any other project report outside those specified in the communication plan. Therefore, it
is recommended that the column of key communication message should incorporate a more flexible
categories such as informal communication, which has a capability of addressing a significant number of
communication issues. The communication plan prepared should be flexible enough to ensure that the
project team members are engaging themselves in informal communication as well.
Preferred Communication Vehicle: Another recommendation associated with the prepared
communication plan can be, enabling communication through a channel other than the preferred
communication channel, in case of an emergency. This will further help in establishing informal
communication among the stakeholders of the project.

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The above two recommendations are expected to addresses the loopholes present in the
current communication plan. The justifications against those two recommendations are indicated in the
section below.
4. Justification of the Recommendations
The recommendation for enabling flexibility in communication is justified in order to establish a
democratic work environment. Presence of scope of informal communication is needed to effectively
communicate any unforeseen issues or risk arising in the project.
The recommendations for communication apart from the preferred communication channel is
justified as well since it establishes the necessity of communication in emergency situation. This
particular recommendation addresses the need for establishing communication between the project
team and the stakeholders during emergency situation. Therefore, both the recommendations are
justified on basis of the project for which the particular communication plan is designed.
Conclusion
The report presents an assessment of the communication plan that is prepared for a project of
developing an integrated health informatics system. Although the idea of a similar project was
formulated years ago, the project could not be executed due to lack of collaboration among the
stakeholders. For ensuring effective collaboration of both the internal and the external stakeholders, a
communication plan is prepared. The report accesses the current communication plan and evaluates
whether the communication plan is effective enough to ensure successful project implementation. The
communication plan is assessed on basis of its functionality and efficiency. Certain modifications in the
current communication plan is suggested in the report.

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References
[1]. A. Badewi, A., The impact of project management (PM) and benefits management (BM) practices on
project success: Towards developing a project benefits governance, framework. International Journal of
Project Management, 34(4), pp.761-778, 2016.
[2] B.G., Zulch, Communication: The foundation of project management. Procedia Technology, 16,
pp.1000-1009, 2014.
[3]. P. Eskerod, and A,.L, Jepsen, Project stakeholder management. Routledge, 2016.
[4]. K. Muszynska, K. Dermol, V Trunk, A. Ðakovic, and G. Smrkolj, Communication management in
project teams–practices and patterns. In Joint International Conference (pp. 1359-1566), May 2015
[5]. J. Heagney, Fundamentals of project management. Amacom, 2016.
[6]. K. Heldman, PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons, 201
[7]. J.K. Crawford. Project management maturity model. Auerbach Publications
[8]. K. Heldman, PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons, 201