I wanted to use this series as examples of basically all the types of communication that can and does happen on a project.  Since I have no real vision yet of format, it can really be anything.  Specific examples, templates, etc….anything worthy of discussion as relevant and necessary communication on projects.  I still feel that effective and efficient communication is the most critical responsibility of the project manager.  If our readers on here have suggestions of things to cover as part of the communication series, please send them to me or comment on this or subsequent articles.

Below I’d like to present something I found in Carl Pritchard’s book, “The Project Management Communications Toolkit.”  It is basically a template for the project planning meeting agenda – which, as we all know – is a very critical team-to-team communication point on any project.

Here is Mr. Pritchard’s summary for this agenda….

Purpose

Project planning meetings are held, as the name implies, in order to develop all or part of the project plan. They are intended as both data gathering and data-organization sessions. They are intended to generate not only the project plan, but a consensus on that plan and its implementation. The agenda serves as a guide for how these sessions will be held.

Application

Project planning meetings may be held any time there is a major shift in project direction or when a new plan needs to be developed. They should be used when a unified vision on how to approach the project is critical (in contrast to situations where a single individual’s vision or approach will drive the entire effort). They may be used to generate a single component of the plan (such as the risk plan or schedule) or the entire plan. The agenda should be sent out (via e-mail or in hard copy) to attendees prior to the meeting to ensure that they are aware of the objective, schedule, and approach to the meeting.

Content

As with a project, the objective of the project planning meeting should be clearly defined. It is important to delineate the specific deliverables and artifacts that will be generated by the end of the meeting, in order to focus effort toward those artifacts. The agenda for a project planning meeting may include a participant list and information about whether they are on-site or “present” via a teleconference. If there are teleconferencing participants, they should be identified as such, because their participation levels will inherently differ from those who are physically present for such a gathering.

Content is king

Objective

The planning meeting agenda starts with a clear, unambiguous statement of the deliverables or artifacts to be generated by the meeting and the intended use of those deliverables.

Historical Review

Background information is given on the project or subproject to provide a frame of reference as to how and why this set of artifacts is important or significant and why particular approaches are appropriate.

Facilitation of Artifacts

A variety of strategies (addressed below in the Approaches section) are used to develop the project plan or components associated with the meeting.

Review and Acceptance of Deliverables

This section contains the participants’ assessments of the meeting deliverables.

Review and Acceptance of Action Items

This is where the identification of outstanding action items and assignments is documented.

Adjournment

This is a line item indicating when the meeting is over. An agenda may be elaborate or simple, but it should include at least the components listed above. The most significant level of effort will be associated with the facilitation of artifacts, because many components of the project plan may be generated for the first time in this meeting.