Chapter 7

Managing Project
Communications
Agenda
 Introduction
 Team Meeting Notes
• Elements of a Typical Meeting Notes
 Project Schedule
• Two Common Methods for Displaying the Schedule
 Team Working Agreement
• Sample Team Working Agreement
 Key Takeaways
MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 2
Introduction

Communication plays a key role in allowing a group of people to function

as a team with a common goal. To be effective, teams must share information
by documenting plans, activities, and decisions (e.g., meeting notes, project
schedules, or team agreements); or resolving problems and conflicts (e.g.,
writing emails or verbal communication).

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 3

Team Meeting Notes
Team Meeting Notes
 Valuable to accurately document team meetings –
the logistics and content.
 Provides helpful benchmark to refresh memories
and resolve questions or issues that arise.
 Could be provided to external audience
(supervisor , client or instructor) to show that the
project is on progress.

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 5

Elements of a Typical Meeting Notes
1. Header 2. Objective statement
o date, time, method (e.g. o 1-2 sentences that
physical location or establish the goal or
Skype call), full names of purpose of the meeting
the members who (e.g., to share findings
attended. and progress, to decide
on a design, or to
brainstorm).
MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS
3. Completed tasks
o from previous week or
last meeting, including:
 Bulleted list of tasks
 Person(s) assigned to
each task (“task owner”)
 Short summary of status
(e.g., completed and
submitted on Carmen or
in progress or pending
group review) .
6
Elements of a Typical Meeting Notes
4. Tasks to be completed 5. Project timeline 6. Decisions
o for the upcoming week, o (may be presented as a o made by group with key
including: Gantt chart) indicating information about how
major milestones and the decisions were made
deadlines. (e.g., group consensus,
 Bulleted list of tasks decided by project
 Person(s) assigned to the manager).
task (“task owner”)

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 7

Project Schedule
Project Schedule

 Helps the team stay on task and allocate enough time for tasks
 Allows the instructor or supervisor to see what the team has
completed or needs to complete

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Two Common Methods for Displaying
the Schedule
1.Task List

PRESENTATION TITLE 10
Two Common Methods for Displaying the
Schedule
2. Gantt Chart

PRESENTATION TITLE 11
Team Working
Agreement
Team Working Agreement

 A type of contract between team members that helps set

expectations and ground rules for how the team will
operate.

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Sample Team Working Agreement

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 14

Sample Team Working Agreement
2) Primary Means of Communication and Expectations
o State your team’s agreed upon various means of communication and expectations for
response.
o (Example: All members will be expected to read emails from anyone in the group daily
and respond in not more than 12 hours.)

3)Scheduling Meetings
o Schedule at least one meeting as part of constructing your team agreement.
(Example: Team will agree, at the end of each class, to set any meetings times and agenda
needed before the next class and beyond if possible. Team members will take turns to send out
a reminder of the meeting with an agenda within eight hours after the class.)

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 15

Sample Team Working Agreement
4) General Responsibilities for All Team Members
o This element of the team working agreement is the list of rules/agreements or the contract
that all members agrees to live by.

5) Specific Team Member Responsibilities/ Deadlines (Optional)

o Schedule at least one meeting as part of constructing your team agreement.
(Example: Team will agree, at the end of each class, to set any meetings times and agenda
needed before the next class and beyond if possible. Team members will take turns to send out
a reminder of the meeting with an agenda within eight hours after the class.)

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Sample Team Working Agreement
6) Conflict Resolution
o Each team should have an agreed-upon approach to addressing issues that may arise.
For example, if a team member is not meeting deadlines, the team agrees to do X [specific action
decided by the team] to address the problem before bringing the issue to a TA or professor.

7) Expectations of Faculty and GTA’s

o Suggested Statement: If a team member fails to live up to this agreement, the situation may be
reported to the staff, but the team will still be responsible for submitting a completed assignment.
Staff will be available to meet with teams to resolve issues.

MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 17

Sample Team Working Agreement

8) Team Signatures
Include signature for each student.

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Key Takeaways

 Prioritize effective communication strategies in group projects to ensure that work is

distributed and completed clearly, fair, and efficient.

 Carefully document decisions and tasks in meeting notes to aid memory and keep
group members accountable.

 Project planning includes creating project schedules for the work and making sure the
team members agree about how the group will function (by completing a team
working agreement, for example).
MANAGING PROJECT COMMUNICATIONS 19
Thank you!