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This process of Monitor Communications is in the monitoring and controlling process group.   The monitoring part is where a comparison is made between the actual work on the project (the executing process group is where the actual work is done) and the work as planned (in the Project Management Plan).   If there are variances, then the controlling part of the process goes into effect, where you come up with a change that will either a) change the work to fit the plan, or if the plan turned out to be unrealistic to begin with, to b) change the plan to fit the work.

For some reason which I haven’t quite figured out, most of the knowledge areas in the monitoring and controlling process group have the title “Control X”, where “X” is the name of the knowledge area.   This knowledge area is one of the exceptions because the title is “Monitor Communications.”   However, make no mistake, the controlling part of the monitoring and controlling process is also in effect, because “change requests” of the kind described in the last paragraph are indeed one of the outputs of the process.

In this post, however, let’s discuss the inputs to this process.

10.3.1 Project Management Plan

Remember, since the whole point of this process is to compare the actual work done with what’s in the plan, the project management plan is going to be an important input for the process.   Specifically for this knowledge area, it will be those components that have to do with communication.

• Resource management plan–recall that in the 6th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide the knowledge area of “resources” refers to both physical resources (equipment, materials, locations) and human resources (i.e., the project team members).   In particular, the roles and responsibilities of the members of the project team may be necessary to review if the communications are sufficient.
• Communications management plan–this indicates the communications that are going out to team members and stakeholders.
• Stakeholder engagement plan–this identifies that the communication strategies that are planned to engage stakeholders based on their level of engagement in the project

10.3.1.2 Project Documents

Here are the project documents that may be used as inputs during this process.

• Issue logs–in particular, any issues related to stakeholder engagement will be relevant for this process.
• Lessons learned register–if lessons are learned with regards to stakeholder communications, then these will be added to the register to improve effectiveness of communication in the remainder of the project.
• Project communications–this provides information on the communications that have been distributed.

10.3.1.3  Work Performance Data

Remember, the process will take the actual work done–in the case of the communications knowledge area, it will be data on the types and quantities of communications that have actually been distributed–and compare it to what is specified in the Communications Management Plan.

10.3.1.4 Enterprise Environmental Factors

• Organizational culture and governance framework
• Established communication channels, tools and systems

10.3.1.5 Organizational Process Assets

• Corporate policies and procedures for social media (ethics and security issues)
• Standardized guidelines for exchange, storage and retrieval of information (legal requirements may require keeping of records for a certain period of time)
• Historical information and lessons learned from previous similar projects

With these inputs, let us go to the next post to discuss the tools and techniques used to actually do the process of Monitor Communications.

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