Communication Plan
A project team must be kept informed throughout the project. This applies to all virtual teams, regardless of how they are managed.
To ensure successful communication, the project manager should create a communication plan with all team members and analyse the following inputs when creating the plan:
- communication requirements,
- communication technologies,
- communication models (sender-receiver, sender-receiver - audience, sender - audience ...),
- communication methods (written, verbal, visual ...).
It is very important that the development of the communication plan is a team effort. Each member of the team should be able to express their expectations and boundaries. Each team should carefully review the following:
- the messages that need to be conveyed,
- the frequency of communication,
- the outcome of the communication,
- the recipient of each message,
- the level of detail of the messages for the different target groups (addressees),
- the best format for each message and target group.
A carefully prepared communication plan should include not only who will communicate with whom and how but also a rule regarding the appropriate time of day for communication. Thus, every project manager should set ground rules for communication within the virtual team. These rules should include, for example:
- rules for responding to voice / short text messages,
- reading and replying to emails,
- publishing messages,
- netiquette.
The ground rules should also include information about what times of day communication should take place; however, this does not mean night and weekend shifts.
One of your first tasks will be to prepare and submit a communication plan for your team and a team contract. When working on your communication plan, keep in mind the above-mentioned. You can get inspired or use a communication canvas from the following websites:
https://www.slideteam.net/internal-communications-strategy-canvas-for-upcoming-project.html#images-1
For an example of netiquette go to:
https://www.utep.edu/extendeduniversity/utepconnect/blog/october-2017/10-rules-of-netiquette-for-students.html