Pulling it All Together – Sample Project Plan

Chapter Summary

This appendix contains a template for a project plan to guide an organization by thinking about communications processes, behaviors, and practices. In addition, the appendix explains how the plan is organized. Suggestions for how to use the project plan are also provided.

Explaining the Project Plan

This chapter is comprised of a project plan. A project plan is a simple aid for managing a complex set of tasks. Project plans are intended to help the reader plan and track progress toward establishing an organization-wide intelligence capability.

Following the project, a plan can help you identify stakeholders, raise awareness of crucial topics, including communicating the importance of effective communication of knowledge. The project plan is a synopsis of the issues and topics that have been discussed throughout the book. An organization might begin its journey by using the project plan as a roadmap. Each task in the project plan refers back to an individual chapter – as a reference for further study and consideration. The project plan is designed to be used over time and as needed to ensure an organization continues to move its strategy forward and ensure it continues to be relevant to and supportive of business goals. The project plan is designed to be adapted to your organization and adapted to include what you learn as you move forward.

The project plan is ordered logically into 12 tasks. Each task is broken down into subtasks or steps that align with the individual chapters’ topics.

• Activities 1–4 are intended to help you understand essential communications and the value of communication and knowledge in the new knowledge economy.

• Activities 5–7 focus on developing an increased awareness of knowledge communication processes and the communications competencies that support them.

• Activities 8–12 focus on critical communication competencies that are essential for effective managers.

• Tasks 13 and 14 guide how to grow the organization’s communication roles, responsibilities, and competencies, and ways to assess those competencies.

How to Use the Project Plan

Chapter by chapter, the book has walked the reader through the key issues and activities. Because organizations will use the book at different stages of preparing for and translating traditional human resources to future people management functions, the reader may want to consider using the project plan to assess where you stand.

A project plan is a blank form that can be expanded to suit your business needs. The project plan is a reminder that your strategy must be your own, and it must align with and be relevant to your business environment. Organizations can use the project plan to do the following:

• Assess and assign responsibility for determining the current state of the organization communications.

• Identify and involve all stakeholders, both current and future, essential to effective knowledge communications and exchange.

• Define the actions and activities that need to be completed to support your strategy. The topics covered in the individual chapters should provide practical guidance on what you need to know to develop a strategy that suits your business goals.

• Align each task in the project plan with the guiding questions presented in individual chapters. Then, walk through the questions and use the answers to help move you to the next task.

• Finally, formulate a communications capacity building and capital management strategy for the near and long term.