1. Introduction to Project Management
Team Management and Communications
Welcome to Introduction to Project Management: Team Management and Communications. This is Lecture c.
Lecture c
This material (Comp 19 Unit 8) was developed by Johns Hopkins University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number IU24OC This material was updated in 2016 by Johns Hopkins University under Award Number 90WT0005.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
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2. Team Management and Communications Learning Objectives—Lecture c
Identify and describe roles of members on a project team
Develop the human resources plan
Acquire, develop, manage, and lead the project team
Identify project communication responsibilities
Develop a communication plan
The Objectives for Team Management and Communications are to:
Identify and describe roles of members on a project team.
Develop the human resources plan.
Acquire, develop, manage, and lead the project team.
Identify project communication responsibilities
Develop a communication plan.
This lecture will focus on the last two objectives.

3. Situational Leadership
Four approaches
Telling
Selling
Participating
Delegating
(Hersey P, Blanchard K. H. (1969))
In their book, Leadership and the One Minute Manager, Hersey and Blanchard presented 4 leadership styles, defined by task behavior and relationship behavior, as effective motivational techniques. These leadership styles ran the following spectrum, from S1 to S4:
S1: Telling or Directing - is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, why, when, and where to do the task.
S2: Selling or Coaching - while the leader is still providing the direction, he or she is now using two-way communication and providing the socio-emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to buy into the process.
S3: Participating or Supporting- this is now shared decision making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing fewer task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior.
S4: Delegating and Observing - the leader is still involved in decisions; however, the process and responsibility has been passed to the individual or group. The leader stays involved to monitor progress.
Hersey and Blanchard go on to state, “of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.”

4. Leadership Summary Challenge Process Create a Shared Vision
Empower Others
Model
Encourage
In summary, a project manager must focus on both management and leadership in order to effectively lead a team and manage a project.
As a leader it is important to challenge and refine existing processes. It is important to establish a vision for the team and project and to communicate this vision clearly so that it is shared by all team members.
As a leader, the project manager must do his best to empower others. In order to build the most effective team, individuals on the team must have the trust, ability, and confidence to perform.
Leaders must model the behaviors appropriate to project and team success. An effective leader must provide ongoing encouragement both formally and informally to maximize team morale, trust, and performance.

5. Project Communications
Project Communications Management requires the following areas of knowledge:
Meeting management skills, including agenda development and conflict resolutions,
Communication skills, including an understanding of various audiences, approaches, and media, and how to apply each appropriately,
Presentation strategies, including effective visual aids and other nonverbal communication skills, and
Sensitivity to communication roadblocks.
Project Communications. Project Management is 80% communication, 20% perspiration which is why the Communication Plan is one of the most important sections of your project management plan.
Project Communications Management ensures that all team members share the same project focus. By helping personal relationships and project activities run smoothly, good communication contributes to a successful outcome or product.
Enabling good communication among the team members requires adequate forethought. The project manager needs to review all the available information to decide what stakeholders need to know to achieve their objectives, and then establish how often and through which channels that information should be disseminated. This communication system should include multiple media, and must be open and flexible to allow changes and problem fixes to be implemented quickly. The manager can also track team performance by comparing status reports against performance predictions.
Project Communications Management requires the following areas of knowledge:
Meeting management skills, including agenda development and conflict resolutions,
Communication skills, including an understanding of various audiences, approaches, and media, and how to apply each appropriately,
Presentation strategies, including effective visual aids and other nonverbal communication skills, and
Sensitivity to communication roadblocks.
There are also several key components in project communication management which should be considered. Encoding, also known as translation, ensures that all participants comprehend the message of the communication. Interference with the message is called noise and finally, the message must be decoded to have meaning for all involved.

6. Planning for Project Communications Management
During project planning the project team develops a communications management plan which contains a description of the identified project stakeholder information needs and defines approach for communicating during the project. Project Communications Planning Process: Plan Communications
During project planning the project team develops a communications management plan which contains a description of the identified project stakeholder information needs and defines approaches for communicating during the project.
A communication requirements analysis is performed to determine the stakeholder information needs.
Project team must determine what project information will be shared, who it will be shared with, when the information will be shared, and how the information will be shared.
Information in the communication management plan may include organization charts, responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), name and contact info of change control board members, meeting times and locations, locations of team members, plus more as determined by the project management team.
Communication with Healthcare staff members is very important and complex. Remember that most institutions are 24X7X365. The staff members that you will be communicating with work on schedules that range from days (7 AM to 3:30 PM), evenings (3 PM to 11:30 PM), nights or third shift (11 PM to 7:30 AM), on the weekends and on holidays. Unlike in the business world, the healthcare staff has work that cannot be put on hold for an hour to attend a meeting. We as the project managers must be mindful of the time commitment that we are asking of our group members. They will have days off when the meetings are scheduled. They will have crises arise that will not allow them to leave their units. Your communication plan and communications must fill this gap. The communications must be concise.

7. Communications Management
Identify Project Stakeholders
Determine Communication Needs
Brainstorm How to Meet Each Need
Implement Mandatory Communication
Prioritize options
Add Communication Activities to Schedule
In most projects, communications should take place in the context of an overall communications strategy and plan to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the project. Status meetings and status reporting should be required. In addition, you should consider using other types of proactive communication. You can create a proactive and effective communication plan using the following processes.
Identify all project stakeholders. In some cases groupings of stakeholders may have similar communications needs; for instance, a Project Steering Committee. In other cases, you may need to consider a single person, such as a sponsor, and communicate with them in a unique way.
Determine the communication needs of each stakeholder. Each stakeholder group may have some similar and some unique communication needs. The Communication Plan helps you get the right information to the right people.
Brainstorm about how to meet those needs. For each stakeholder, brainstorm how to fulfill their communication need. Determine what they need to know, how often they need to be updated, and the delivery method that is most appropriate.
Implement mandatory communications. Put in place communication options that are mandatory for the project or for the environment. These options should include project status reports. In some cases there may also be government-required reports, legal reports, or otherwise. It is essential to be aware of and on top of these.
Prioritize the remaining communication options. Determine how much effort is required to create and distribute each of the communication options identified in step 3. Determine the potential benefit of the communication to the recipient and the project team. Once you have completed these actions, prioritize the communication options that you have identified. Implement the communication options that provide high value and require low effort from the project team. Discard options that are high effort and yield little benefit. Also discard the options that provide little benefit even if they require very little effort from the project team.
And finally, create a schedule of communication activities from the prioritized list you created in step 5. If you do not add the communication work to your schedule, the chance of it getting done is greatly decreased. Your schedule should assign frequencies, due dates, time required and responsibility assignment for each communication option you decide to implement.
 Be sure to include in your communications, action items that need to be done, who is responsible for the items and a time frame that they should be done. These are some of the requirements that overseeing and regulatory bodies look for when they review the project documentation. These action items should be reviewed at every appropriate meeting until they have been resolved. Adding a line item to every communication template with the necessary items will insure that these action items will not be forgotten.

8. Communication Requirements Analysis
During project planning the project team conducts a communication requirements analysis to:
Determine the type and format of information needed to develop the communications management plan.
Identify the stakeholder information needs.
During project planning the project team conducts a communication requirements analysis. This analysis should determine the type and format of information needed to develop the communications management plan and identify the stakeholder information needs.
An earlier project planning step in either the project charter or the initial project plan should include a stakeholder register. This register will be a great benefit in your communications requirements analysis.
Everyone has a preferred way of giving and receiving information. For some s are best, others like oral presentations. The style and method will depend on the person. All communication styles and methods should be represented in the communication plan.
It is always best to present the information in a variety of styles and methods. Many times the receiver of the information will not grasp a point in one communication style but will understand it in another style.

9. Stakeholder Registry
If you have not already produced a Stakeholder List and Stakeholder Analysis, your first step on Communication Planning should be to identify stakeholders and create a register. Your first priority in creating a Stakeholder Analysis as part of the Communication Plan is the identification and listing of all project stakeholders. What is a stakeholder? A stakeholder is defined as anyone who stands to be impacted by the operations and deliverables of your project.
The Identify Stakeholders process pinpoints anyone or any institution with a potential effect on the project. These stakeholders may consist of clients, project staff, or consultants. Stakeholder analysis graphs stakeholder Interest along the X axis and stakeholder Power along the Y axis. The following steps can be used to create your Project Stakeholder Registry.
Step 1: Identify all potential stakeholders and relevant information. Add them to the left- most column on your stakeholder registry.
Step 2: Identify and record their department or company, the role they will likely play in your project, what their expectations from the project may be, a description of their type and their level of influence, a measure of their power or impact, and what stakeholder category they fall into.
Step 3: Assess how the stakeholders are likely to react or respond in various situations to help plan influencing them to enhance support or mitigate negative impacts. Sounds like risk management? It’s a lot like risk management.
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10. Develop the Stakeholder Registry
Develop a stakeholder registry for the CRMS scenario based on your analysis of the staffing needs. Include the expected project stakeholders.
Based on the stakeholder analysis, develop a stakeholder registry grid for the CRMS scenario from slide 4.
Develop a stakeholder registry for the CRMS scenario based on your analysis of the staffing needs. Include the expected project stakeholders.
Based on the stakeholder analysis, develop a stakeholder registry grid for the CRMS scenario from slide four.

11. Planning Effective Communication
Considerations:
Types of Communication
Barriers and enhancers
Lines of Communication
Forms and Appropriateness
Media and Distribution Methods
International and Virtual Teams
Effective Meeting Practices
Frequency of Communication
In order to be effective in project communication it is essential to consider the following items:
What types of communications will you use? Are there barriers to communication and elements that will enhance communication? You can greatly improve communications by identifying these and addressing them.
How many lines of communications exist between all project stakeholders? The larger your project team and stakeholder group is the more complex communications become and the greater number of lines exist. This makes it essential to distinguish formal project communications from informal or non-project communications. Have you established forms and defined what is appropriate? This can help avoid problematic and unintended communications. What media and distribution methods will you use? Is your team open to electronic communications or do they prefer paper, face-to-face or telephone. If you are working on international and virtual teams, this will impact how you must communicate. Have you implemented an effective meeting practice? No one likes having their time wasted with unfocused, rambling meetings. Be sure that you have a meeting protocol that maximizes efficiency. How often do you communicate? This is important especially in the electronic age when many people expect instant communications and response. Be sure that these expectations are set clearly.
Special attention needs to be paid to communications sent to the provider group. This group includes doctors, physician’s assistants, and nurse practitioners. Most other groups, such as nursing, pharmacy, radiology, etc. in the healthcare organization have developed a strong communication methodology. The provider group has a looser connection to the institution. They pose a challenge because they are not employed by the institution but only interact with the institution when they have a patient in the hospital.

12. Communication Management Plan
Describes the communication needs of the project stakeholders
Describes how communication will be managed on the project, and the type and format in which the information will be communicated
Describes when and how communications will be shared
Identifies who is responsible for providing information
Describes escalation processes
The communication management plan defines the project’s communication requirements, tools, and strategies, such as necessary communication devices or methods, such as text-enabled mobile telephones, or expected communication media or formats, such as regular meetings via the Internet. The plan also identifies the personnel in charge of each type of communication. Communication management plans can vary in the presentation, format, level of detail and instruction, and breadth of scope.
An effective project management plan should at a minimum describe communication needs of project stakeholders via a stakeholder registry. Describe how communications will be managed on the project including the type and format for communicating information. It will also describe when and how communications will be shared via a communications schedule. It also identifies who is responsible for providing information via a responsibility assignment matrix and project reporting schedule. It describes the escalation process for urgent communications on the project as well.

13. Communication Methods
Project information is shared with stakeholders by different methods:
Interactive communication: meetings, phone calls, etc.
Push communication: memos, reports, faxes, etc.
Pull communication: intranet sites, knowledge repositories, etc.
A project communication plan must define effective communication methods and determine which ones are most effective for specific components of the project. There are several categories of communication methods. Interactive communication typically consists of real time meetings, phone calls, video, or web conferences. This is the most engaging form of communication and allows the communicator to immediately judge the response to a message. It also allows for immediate dialogue and decision making.
Push communications consist of memos, reports, faxes, s and other one-directional pushed methods. This type of communication allows the sender to broadcast a message widely with little effort. This type of communication is efficient but much less engaging and personal.
Pull communication relies on the information consumer to actively pursue the information they need. This is a popular and effective tool for many geographically distributed project teams who may not be able to effectively interact in real time. Tools for pull communications include internet sites, wikis, knowledge bases and web-based project management tools such as Basecamp and JIRA.
In large and small healthcare organizations, multiple, frequent communications are best. Use every communication that the organization has to get your message out. Sometimes the low tech processes are not used because we have so many high tech communication methods. A sandwich board outside of the staff lounge or cafeteria can work wonders where an will get ignored.

14. Communication Channels
The number of communication channels is defined by the formula:
n(n-1)/2
Where N is the number of people communicating.
This slide is intended to illustrate how complexity of communications grows with the size of the project team. The number of communications channels grows by a factor of n (n-1)/2 based on the number n being the number of stakeholders. So if you have 5 stakeholders, you have 10 possible communication channels. If you have 9 stakeholders, you have 36 possible communication channels. Growing project teams and project stakeholder lists can significantly impact the complexity of communications and greatly increase the necessity for a formalized communication plan to order and control the communications.

15. Manage Stakeholder Expectations
Tools:
Stakeholder
Register
Project Management Plan
Communications Management Plan
Issue Log
Change Log
Intangible Communication Tools:
Communication Methods
Interpersonal Skills
Management Skills
The primary purpose of this process is to make sure that you meet stakeholder needs and resolve any issues they may have. Several tools play a key role in managing stakeholder expectations. First, the stakeholder register provides information on each stakeholder. This will greatly assist in working effectively with each stakeholder. The project management plan which contains the communications management plan is a required guide for communicating with individual stakeholders. It is important to keep an issue log and change log in order to track stakeholder concerns and changes that may need to be made to the project based on their concerns. Communicating with upset stakeholders often requires finesse and tact. It is important to understand the intangible tools required for managing stakeholder expectations. These are communication methods, interpersonal skills and management skills. It is important to note that this process often results in project change requests. When change requests are made, updates to project documents and the project plan are also made.

16. Project Reporting Deliverables Risks and Critical Issues
Progress
Project Status or health
Upcoming Activities
Risks and Critical Issues
Financial Status and Forecasts
Action Plans or Next Steps
One of the most essential elements of the effective coordination of the project is the dissemination of communication regarding the current performance to all relevant stakeholders. This reporting coordination is accomplished via an established performance reporting plan. Performance reporting refers to the process of collecting and disseminating performance information to all relevant parties. Typical information that is provided via reports includes the following:
The overall health of the project – is the project on time, on budget, and meeting quality or feature requirements?
Activities which will be undertaken soon – has the schedule shifted or changed? Are there key activities coming up that various parties should be aware of?
Any risks or critical issues - if problems have arisen or new information has exposed unanticipated risks, these are essential items to be communicated effectively in a project report.
Financial status and forecast – what is the overall financial state of the project? Is it coming in on budget? What are the projections regarding budget and project cost?
And finally, action plans or next steps – this can include adjustments or changes to the plan.

17. Team Management and Communications Summary—Lecture c
Project Human Resources:
Building a team
Managing a team
Power of protocols, standards, and expectations
Project Communications
Essential for creating an effective team
Both tie back to the initial Project Charter
This concludes Lecture c of Team Management and Communications. In summary, this lecture has covered project human resource management and project communications management.
Key points to highlight in project human resources are the steps to build an effective team, from planning to acquisition to development and management. The development of an HR plan will provide the backbone and set the stage for a successful team and project.
Project communications planning is essential for creating an effective team and communicating the success of the team to all stakeholders. It is essential to have a plan that includes protocols, standards, and expectations for communication, both within and beyond the immediate project team.
Existing organizational standards will play a big role in the development and use of both Human Resources and communication plans. Each of these plans will be informed by, and inform revisions to the project charter and project plan.

18. Team Management and Communications References—Lecture c—1
Hersey P, Blanchard K. H. (1969). Management of Organizational Behavior – Utilizing Human Resources. New Jersey/Prentice Hall.
Kerzner H. (2009) Project Management: a Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. 10th ed. Hoboken, NJ.:Wiley.  
Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 4th ed (2008).Newtown Square, PA: PMI.
Project Management Knowledge: The Ultimate Resource for Project Management. ( ). Available from:
Scwalbe K. (2009) Information technology project management (with Microsoft Project 2007 CD-ROM). 6th ed.; Boston: Cenage Learning.
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19. Team Management and Communications References—Lecture c—2
Stackpole C.(2010) A User’s Manual to the PMBOK Guide. Wiley.
Stackpole C. (2009). A Project Manager’s Book of Forms: A Companion to the PMBOK Guide. Hoboken, N.J.:Wiley;
Wysocki, RK . (2009) Effective project management: traditional, agile, extreme. 5th Edition. New York: Wiley; 2009.
Tables, Charts, and Figures
Table 8.5. Stakeholder Registry. Courtesy of: Theron Feist.
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Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 4.0

20. Introduction to Project Management Team Management and Communications Lecture c
This material (Comp 19 Unit 8) was developed by Johns Hopkins University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number IU24OC This material was updated in 2016 by Johns Hopkins University under Award Number 90WT0005.
No audio.
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 4.0