Communications Plan

Everything discussed thus far in this chapter can be best captured in a project communications plan. The project communications plan is a document that strives to eliminate confusion by clarifying and communicating project information to both the project team and management. In addition to defining roles and responsibilities, the escalation process, and meeting protocols, the communications plan should detail how individual and team status will be tracked and reported (covered further in Chapter 10 on infrastructure) and how change notification should be handled. You may also want to include information on a team Web site, software tools that will be used for the project, including collaboration tools, and distribution methods for information. A sample template and workflow for a project communications plan is included at the end of this chapter.

Agile Strategy

Create a project communications plan to capture all elements related to decision making and communication of project information. Subsequently, exchange and discuss the communications plan with the project stakeholders.