Essay: Communication's Role In UK Project Delivery Quality And Timeliness.

Write about the importance of communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities. with use of UK case studies. 

Aims of the Research Project

Effective communication leads to better project management. Communication is about speaking to and hearing from people. This also includes understanding the entire message. It refers to the exchange of data. This is done from one particular stage of the project to the other point efficiently.

However, various difficulties are faced while implementing that because of different factors such as nature of a project, organizational structure and so on. “Project management communication” is a practical skill and it can never be perfected. However, it is always open to development.

The following research proposal considers the significance of communication in maintaining quality and in-time delivery of different project activities. At first, it discusses the aims of a research project. Then prior researches done in various literatures are reviewed. Next, an outline plan is proposed regarding conducting this project. Lastly, a critical discussion is made out of this proposal.

Communication is regarded as a crucial element for every project that are well-managed. There are primarily two main groups of people with whom the project manager requires to assure effective and a very clear communication. They are the project team and stakeholders (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The aim of the research project is highlighted below.

• Firstly, projects are intended to be sponsored by an element of business along with a stake in every outcome.
• Next, they are presumably to be presented on different project board that sets some objectives for projects and controls development in due time.
• Providing regular updates to every stakeholder and ensuring communication with them is complete, transparent and consistent.
• Project managers must assure that everybody is aware of what they can achieve and requires reporting on progress to project board and projecting sponsors. 

It must be understood that there have been many scopes of things that might be going wrong as any smart communication is not maintained and established.

Project manager and a team are able to identify communications that are required with the help of stakeholder analysis theory. Communication management plan could be deployed to document and organize processes, expectations and types of communications. For this modifications could be done in the following sectors (Heldman, 2018).

• The first one is stakeholder communication requirement for communicating proper information as demanded by stakeholders.
• Next one is the information regarding what is needed to be communicated. This has been including content, details along with expected format and so on.
• Next one is detailed on how required data flows through a project to proper people. This structure of communication must help in documenting the location where various data can originate. This also includes the idea to whom information could be sent and what modality the data is acceptable (Schwalbe, 2015).
• Then there is the schedule of when different kinds of communication can take place.
• Processes of escalation and timeframes to move issues upwards in any organization are other modifications. This occurs as they could not be resolved at lower strata.

The scope of above-discussed aims is analyzed keeping the whole industry sector in mind.

Purpose of communication management plan is to describe methodologies that could be utilized to manage communications under any project. It is the output of communication management process detailing particular communication frequencies, timelines, recipients, events, products and additional pertinent communications information. The project management deliverables are also referred to as essential communication tools by Haimes (2015). However, under most scenarios, communication management is always a straightforward and simple delivery-enablement process. It uses a relatively standard toolkit.  Besides, under the first change and initiatives of business transformation, engagement and communication represent primary focus of project and notable proportion of project work effort.

Various instances can be given from the articles that have influenced this research. Guo et al. (2014) mentions that an organization that embarked on company-wide up-gradation of desktops. As technical employees arrived for installing new technologies, employees asked the reason to do that. Thus this updating has been a painful experience for both customer personnel and providers. In another case at the beginning of software development project, client queried project manager for a written and weekly status report. Then project manager accommodated willingly. As this project gets finished within budget, on time and to specification, the client fills out a satisfaction survey, where he reported his dissatisfaction with his project. Again, as shown by Ramazani and Jergeas (2015), a vendor organization consisted of four-hour standard to react to reported malfunctions in their critical components of the hardware. Then, as clients discovered to their dismay, the first time they called about any malfunction. Further, another instance is shown by Stanciu, Condrea & Zamfir (2016), where a network management group updated networking technology utilized by their internal customers. Most of them were largely dissatisfied with service delivery of groups. Here customers have also been asked to be involved in this effort. Hence, network group got compiled. Moreover, nevertheless, customers stayed unhappy. A well-liked manager has stopped by their cubicles of various employees as shown by Webb (2017). This has been a high-pressure project for seeing how they have been doing and offering encouragement. As mentioned by Taylor, (2015), IT personnel at an organization were eager to restore their once-positive reputation that is implemented on various service improvements. They have been justifiably proud and wished a huge leap towards customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, judging from various survey results, customers have hardly cared and noticed.

Modifications to a Theory to Enhance its Value or Validity in a Particular Context

However, there have been various gaps in the current literature that this research must fulfill. While communication gaps rise between staffs, outcomes often lead to confusion, misaligned priorities, indecisive actions and unclear motives. These communication gaps are technological needing updating the equipment of office computers. Further, the article does not mention about personal problems that can arise from differences in personality. Moreover, the articles overlook the example of next generation who are more inclined to depend on technological devices regarding communication. Besides, the previous generation has been shying away from this kind of communication at work. Thus, irrespective of reason, bridging of these gaps needs extensive assessment of issues and proper steps for rectifying the issues. 

For conducting this research market research is done interviewing employees from various organizations. This falls under primary qualitative data analysis considering communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities.

This qualitative market research must take into account feelings and opinions of employees as far as maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities is considered. This research must go beyond employee’s mind to fathom what they have seen to lack or they have genuinely liked the project implementation.

The primary role of a type of research is to provide businesses with a detailed view of consumers and customers for satisfying their needs better. This process is integral to able to compete with other payers under the same industry and helping to assess things like market needs and competition. This research should make use of statistical and analytical methods and techniques for gathering and interpreting data in an organized fashion. It can also include opinion, social study and many more. It is vital for current rising complicated business scenario.

The research must retrieve ideas of necessities of customers and some factors that could be examined by this process are given below. This should verify the following needs.

The research would be beneficial for following fields:

The rationale of the topic:

The topic of the importance of communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities is chosen for various reasons. The factors are discussed below.

Miscommunication:

It is one of the most common problems possessed by businesses. As miscommunication is avoided, business activities turn out to be more efficient. It often happens at various management levels for any industry. For example, as any member of senior management issues any memo, it gets misinterpreted by additional staffs of the organization (de Carvalho, Patah & de Souza Bido, 2015). For preventing miscommunication, it has been vital to think about what is said and how other parties could interpret that. For instance, as the memo is finished writing, it could be read out loud such that one can slow down and then think about what the others would hear as they understood that. 

Review of Previous Research from Various Literatures

Benefits:

The topic is chosen because of its various benefits. Firstly, efficient business communication keeps relationships healthy. It helps in relying on business partners or suppliers as a part of success for a business. Thus a constant level of interaction is needed to be maintained. This helps in communicating efficiently, avoiding vendors, clients, employees to make invalid assumptions harming business. Further, another advantage of efficient business communication is that it is helpful for saving time. Rather than having to clarify all the things, one can move on after issuing or receiving orders. 

Time Frame:

While trying to develop communication within an industry, it takes little time to develop systems that work. Every employee is not aware how to communicate with others efficiently. They require devoting some resources for training, seminars or classes for teaching all the people how to communicate effectively with others (Brière et al., 2015). As procedures and policies are instituted, the effective communication process turns out easier.

Difficulties or uncertainties foresaw on communication in maintaining quality and timely delivery of project activities:

Suitable alternatives to proposed methods:

Some of the other options have been effective for the above-proposed solutions. They are analyzed below.

Conclusion:

It is seen from the above study that business communication is an essential element to run and manage businesses. Employees, managers and owners should efficiently convey thoughts and ideas to other people who are working in companies out outside stakeholders of an industry. Various kinds of communication processes are available for people working in a business environment. Every method has been offering people with scoped to opt for how they can convey a message and develop particular communication style for different receivers. Business kind of communication is considered as a general language for various companies irrespective of the expertise area. The report shows that the primary purpose is to improve organizational practices, decreasing errors and then deliver proper guidance for every team members. However, though it has existed for a very long time, business communication has enhanced a lot in the past few decades. This series of business communication types have evolved in the current world that is suitable for various circumstances. 

References:

Badewi, A. (2016). The impact of project management (PM) and benefits management (BM) practices on project success: Towards developing a project benefits governance framework. International Journal of Project Management, 34(4), 761-778.

Brière, S., Proulx, D., Flores, O. N., & Laporte, M. (2015). Competencies of project managers in international NGOs: Perceptions of practitioners. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), 116-125.

Outline Plan of the Research Proposal

Carvalho, M. M. D., & Rabechini Junior, R. (2015). Impact of risk management on project performance: the importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2), 321-340.

Cheruvelil, K. S., Soranno, P. A., Weathers, K. C., Hanson, P. C., Goring, S. J., Filstrup, C. T., & Read, E. K. (2014). Creating and maintaining high?performing collaborative research teams: the importance of diversity and interpersonal skills. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 12(1), 31-38.

de Carvalho, M. M., Patah, L. A., & de Souza Bido, D. (2015). Project management and its effects on project success: Cross-country and cross-industry comparisons. International Journal of Project Management, 33(7), 1509-1522.

Effective Project Communication Management. (2018). Projectperfect.com.au. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from https://www.projectperfect.com.au/white-paper-effective-project-communication-management.php

Fang, C., Marle, F., & Xie, M. (2017). Applying importance measures to risk analysis in engineering project using a risk network model. IEEE Systems Journal, 11(3), 1548-1556.

Golini, R., Kalchschmidt, M., & Landoni, P. (2015). Adoption of project management practices: The impact on international development projects of non-governmental organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(3), 650-663.

Guo, F., Chang-Richards, Y., Wilkinson, S., & Li, T. C. (2014). Effects of project governance structures on the management of risks in major infrastructure projects: A comparative analysis. International Journal of Project Management, 32(5), 815-826.

Haimes, Y. Y. (2015). Risk modeling, assessment, and management. John Wiley & Sons.

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Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.

Jónsdóttir, I. (2016). Hard or soft skills?: how the Erasmus plus project leaders view the relative importance of skills when it comes to conducting their projects (Doctoral dissertation).

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Martinelli, R. J., & Milosevic, D. Z. (2016). Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q., & Yang, J. (2015). Stakeholder management studies in mega construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 446-457.

Project communications: A plan for getting your message across. (2018). TechRepublic. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/project-communications-a-plan-for-getting-your-message-across/

Ramazani, J., & Jergeas, G. (2015). Project managers and the journey from good to great: The benefits of investment in project management training and education. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), 41-52.

Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Stanciu, A. C., Condrea, E., & Zamfir, C. (2016). The importance of communication in quality management. Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, 16(2), 393-396.

Taylor, P. (2015). The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs): An integration of the extant literature on ICT adoption in small and medium enterprises.

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