Project communication needs to engender and leverage stakeholder relationships. Sure, all parties with a stake in a project require access to quality information, the right information, in the right format and form on a timely basis. They need venues to vet issues and concerns and forums to share and reach consensus. Each stakeholder may also require their own unique views of content and progress to satisfy their personal communication styles and organizational responsibilities. But most importantly, successful projects need effective collaboration. To achieve that end, the right communication strategies and practices are essential.

There are as many project tracking and reporting practices as there are projects. Take a look at any standard practices within the organization and determine whether the existing standards can meet the needs of stakeholders and other constituents or at least serve as a foundation for specific additional requirements. To determine what your project needs, consider the following:

Communication Plan
The communication plan addresses the needs of all parties who will be involved with and affected by the planned change. It can contain unique materials for each target group, timed to maximize the value of the communication, and can include any or all of the following approaches:

__ An ongoing series of written information such as project plan documentation, project schedules and status updates targeted to the needs of the various audiences
__ Briefing sessions
__ Issues- and change request-tracking reports
__ Information gathering sessions
__ Web sites, blogs, RSS feeds with current status information
__ Town halls
__ Questionnaires re progress, satisfaction, issues and concerns
__ Reports highlighting areas of stakeholder agreement and discord on all project elements
__ Project wikis to encourage multiway communications
__ Contests and promotions

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