Communication plan is a set of matrixes and procedures to regulate relations inside project team and with outside teams and individuals. Usually I do not publish communication plan as a separate document, it’s the part of Project Management plan.
In my post I will go through main section of communication plan, briefly describing each of them.
Responsibility Assignment Matrix
Name \ Phase | Request | Initiation | Detailed Planning | Execution & Control | Closeout |
Name 1 | A | P | R | ||
Name 2 | I | S | |||
… |
Letters have the following meaning:
- А – accountable for the project phase,
- P – participant in the project phase,
- R – review required,
- I – input required,
- S – sign-off required.
Distributed structure of information flow
Name \ Document | Status Report | Data Schedule | Technical documentation | Test Plan | … |
Name 1 | W | ||||
Name 2 | M | ||||
… |
In this matrix we list all milestone documents of the project and how we’re going to communicate them to the team. W – means written communication, M – means meeting communication.
Generally for small and middle projects these two matrixes are enough. But for complex, large and formal projects I’d suggest to add some additional information to communication plan:
- Provide a description of the information to be distributed, including format, content, level of detail, and conventions/definitions to be used.
- Develop schedules showing when each type of communication will be produced.
- Describe methods for accessing information between scheduled communications.
- Determine when and how project communication plan should be updated. For not large projects it’s updated on monthly basis as a part of Project Management plan.