Chapter 15: Tracking Project Performance 309 Automating project (Business web site)
Chapter 15: Tracking Project Performance 309 Automating project communications If you could automate all of your project communications, life would be swell. But no amount of automation is likely to ever take the place of the water cooler or the coffee machine. Those informal methods of communication, where a few (or more) people gather to discuss the status of the project, are crucial to a project s success. The only potential for problems occurs when people start rumors, or when more talking happens in the break room than in the project status meetings. (As far as we know, no one has invented the technology to completely eradicate rumors.) Even though you may not be able to or even desire to eliminate all informal and formal communications, you can automate some of your software project communication. Here are just a few reasons why you should: To save time To enable stakeholders to receive particular communications at regularly scheduled intervals that they can anticipate To provide standardization in automated project communications (if you provide templates, some forms of communications will follow a standard format that excludes unnecessary information) To reduce the amount of noise in communications (if you can provide online reports instead of presentations in meetings, you avoid long meetings filled with side conversations and other interruptions) The most important point to remember about project communication, whether it s automated or manual, is to clearly and concisely provide the information to the appropriate stakeholders. (See Stressing accuracy in reporting, earlier in this chapter, for more information.) Some examples of automated project communications are Project status reports, sent via e-mail, that are always due by 1:00 p.m. on Wednesdays, to a specified number of stakeholders. Project event alerts for certain predefined project events, such as team meetings or critical issues update meetings. Automatic pages to remind stakeholders of project activities. For example, a team member may receive an automatic page if he is past his due date on his input to an issue resolution. Automatic e-mail alerts when a project schedule (or other predefined project management tool) has been updated. Only the stakeholders affected by the change would receive the e-mail. For example, a stakeholder would
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