Project Communication in Agile

The purpose of this article explain project communications management, what it is and what pertains to it. As well as how it translates into an Agile environment. 

So what exactly is project communications management? The long and short of it is that it is making sure that there is a good generation, spread, storage, and disposal of information relating to a project. These four things mean that information needs to be clear and concise for others to understand, the information cannot be false or vague. The spread of information means you have appropriate channels to make sure everyone is on the same page. For example, if you make a change that only some people get, those who are out of the loop might produce work that is unusable. At the very least, there will be a lot of confusion. You also need good storage of this information, many places give updates through things like text messages and emails because these types of communication are permanent. That is why companies do not call, or use one-time messaging like Snapchat. This is because if someone needs to go back and look at something, there should be a record for them to do that. Lastly, disposal of information covers things like shredding documents for security reasons, it is not as important as the other three for promoting good communication, but it is still important nonetheless.  It is all about keeping everyone on the same page. The issue though is that as a project gets bigger and more amount of people are required, communication can be quite complicated. It is a lot easier to tell five people something when compared to a number like five thousand. 

There are 3 processes to project communication management. 

1. Planning- This part is where you answer several important questions, like how much communication and information do the stakeholders need, who needs what type of information, when will they need it, and how exactly will they get it. 

• A question that might be asked is, why is there a limit to the information needs of people? Why not give out as much information as possible? This is because there is a principle of least privilege. Meaning that people are only given the information they need, otherwise, it could be considered a security risk. It is similar to something like a need-to-know basis. 

2. Managing- This is actually implementing your plan from the previous step as well as implementing the generation, spread, storage, and disposal aspects discussed earlier.

3. Monitoring- This is making sure everyone's communication needs are met, especially stakeholders.  

Because of the iterative nature of Agile, how communication is handled is a little different than traditional methods. The ever-changing nature of it make it hard to construct a plan that is to be used for the whole duration. So what can you use? Here a some techniques that can be used in Agile environments. 

1. Feedback Method: This is all about getting input from people, specifically stakeholders to see what parts of the project to stay the same and which ones need to change. There are several ways to facilitate this method.

• Surveys

• Interviews

• Feedback boxes

• Live Documents- Something like a Google Docs page, a document that can easily be modified. 

2. Osmotic Communication: Teams decide when to contribute to a discussion based on information flowing in the background. For example, team A might have something to build off of or combat something said by team C, which team B then can also give their two cents on. It is closer to a group discussion when compared to the other methods. 

3. Social Media Based: Applications that allow team members to communicate. Some examples are Discord, GroupMe, or WhatsApp. 

4. Two-Way Communication: Form of information transmission where there is both a sender and a reciever. This can happen over something like email, but it can also happen in person or over mediums like Dropbox, where there really is no speaking/messaging, but there still is a type of information transmission. 

It should be known that while there are more types of communication besides the ones listed above. Each one has their place in time. Even something like email, which is probably going to be one of the most used forms of communication for any type of project, has its limitations. For example, you really do not want to try and mediate a conflict over email, which is something that could be better done in an in-person environment. As email makes it harder to understand someone's tone when communicating. There are situations where utilizing the right type of communication can make amazing progress, or it can set you back greatly. 

In conclusion, project communication management does change between a traditional environment when compared to an Agile one. And some of the changes are significant. But Agile has a few things baked into its structure that help to account for things in project communication management. Also, there are many types of communication, but there is not one that is considered superior to every other in every situation. Each communication method has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the situation. 

PM-Training.net. (n.d.). Agile Communication. Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://pm-training.net/agile-communication/ 

Schwalbe, K. (2018). Project Resource Management. In Information Technology Project Management (9th ed., pp. 425-462). Cengage.