In project management, project managers spend more than 70% of their time communicating with other people. Thus, it is important for project managers to have good communication skills. Having an effective communication management plan ensures effective communication throughout the project’s lifecycle.
The communications management plan is an integral component of the program, project and portfolio management plan. It describes the information about the project that will be distributed to the stakeholders. It also describes how communication should be planned, monitored, structured and controlled.
There is various information that is monitored by the communications management plan and these include the stakeholders’ communication requirements and the information that needs to be communicated to the stakeholder. It is also crucial to include the people responsible for communicating the information as well as those who are responsible for the release of confidential information. It also includes guidelines for the project status meetings, e-mail correspondence, and project team meetings. In a nutshell, the communications management plan looks into the different communication-related aspects and manages it for the efficient flow of communication within the organization.
This project management term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.