Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

11.12. COMMUNICATION PLAN

Developing a communication plan for the PPM process is no different than developing a communication plan for a large project.

Foundational Tool PPM implementation communication plan

Agendas and minutes of all the committee meetings should be unrestricted and accessible to anyone in the company. All the reports generated by the PMO to monitor the process should also be made available to everyone. This information, however, should be in a "pull" mode. By this we mean that the most appropriate way to share this information would be by posting these documents either to a shared drive that is accessible to everyone or on an Intranet website. It would be inappropriate to send an email blast (push) to everyone in the company with the reports and other documents.

Making the information transparent will build trust in the organization. It will also contribute toward delegitimizing pet projects that bypass the scrutiny of the organization.

At a minimum, develop a communication plan to meet the following needs (probably a page on the Intranet):

• Status of projects

• Resource availability reports

• Glossary of commonly used terms

• Other useful statistics

Figure 11.3. The PPM tool is used to provide information needed to make resource allocation decisions. This graphic shows the available capacity of the organization along with the demand for resources from the active projects in the portfolio.