Module 9 – Communication and Reporting Performance – Closing Out the Project
Key Takeaways
- Not every project stakeholder is born with effective communication skills.
- Not every project stakeholder can acquire and practice effective communication skills.
- The communication requirements of stakeholders change over time.
- Project stakeholders need to be able to identify communication barriers and work diligently to remove these from impacting the project.
- Always plan, manage, and follow up on the project meetings to ensure they are achieving what they set out to achieve.
- Project reports must be three dimensional – reporting progress, status, and forecast to complete information.
- Tailor and target the communication tool for the stakeholder.
- Understand exactly what effective communication is.
- Remove any ambiguity from your project communications (this is one of the greatest sources of frustration and scheduling changes on most projects).
- Acknowledge that scope creep will probably occur and prepare for it.
- Sign off with the stakeholders as to what the agreed criteria will be for measuring and recording performance once the project starts.
- Look for continuous improvement in how you measure and control achievement.
- Work with the project lifecycle appreciating the respective inputs and outputs at each stage and how they can influence communication.
- As the project nears finalisation, the reporting focus should move off progress and status and focus on forecast completion information.
- Consider cancelling a scheduled meeting if there is nothing to meet about (this will frighten a lot of people).
- Involve all the decision-makers in your meetings.
- Remember, corrective action will not always be required for every deviation.
- Keep each other informed – openly, honestly, and regularly.
- The earlier you admit you are in trouble, the more chance you have of assistance.
- Don’t forget to sing your praises in the reports (as no one else will).
- Reporting and schedules go hand in hand – make sure you have both when making decisions.
- If your project report is a one-page document, it will be read (and hopefully actioned).
- Measuring performance is inherently difficult by yourself, let alone in conjunction with every other stakeholder with a vested interest in their outcomes.
- What can be measured, can be reported and controlled.
- If you are just reporting on your projects…don’t bother, the information is already out of date and so is the project.
Exercises