Question

Based on Chapter- Communication Planning-

  Think of a situation from your personal or work activities when a few communication problems occurred during the project. To do:

2.1. Fully describe the communication problems in detail.

2.2. Using the theory of the course, describe two different communications that, if they had been included in a Communications Management Plan, would have helped reduce or eliminate the communication problems identified. For each communication, explain why it would have reduced or eliminated the problem.

Answer 1

Background and the communication problems

The senior management of an FMCG Company where I am working decided to pursue a new project wherein they wanted to start the deliveries of the supply of the products to the customers from the company warehouse at 6 AM in the morning as against the regular 8 AM delivery. The move was made after consulting the sales head.

The company deals with a number of food products which are regularly imported from other countries as well as in house production of a number of packed food products in their factory based on customer orders received on the previous day evening.

The communication problems

The decision to change the delivery timings was not consulted and also not informed to the other departments .This has resulted in a number of communication problems:

1. The clients like the retail chains had a fixed timeslot during the day for accepting the products delivered. The move has resulted in the vehicles waiting at the client premises for the time slot in-order to make the delivery. The decision should have been consulted with the logistics team.

2. Based on the clients order placed on the previous day evening, the in house factory would be producing the packed food products during the night shift and deliver the products by 7 AM to the company warehouse. But this resulted in products not being delivered to client as the delivery vehicles supplying to clients might have already left by 6 AM. There should have been communication to the production factory on the change in the timing and also sales team informing the clients to send the orders slightly earlier.

Communication Management Plan

The following two communication methods should have been pursued to address the issues:

1. Meeting :

An internal meeting should have been conducted with the key department heads like Production department, Sales department and the logistics department to understand the nature of issues that might have arisen during the implementation and how the same can be implemented without any issues.

Meeting should be able to discuss the following:

Identifying the issues that arise due to the implementation of the new project and mitigating the communication problems.

Ø The Logistics manager to highlight the client specific time slot issue that is creating problems for the delivery. The issue can be resolved by change in the route plan which is optimised by the logistics manager; at the same time the Sales head to understand the issue and discuss the same with the client for a change in the timeslot possibility so that there is no delay in the delivery.

Ø Production manager to address the issue of receiving the orders from the client much earlier than current norms. To be jointly deliberated by the sales manager and production manager. Sales Head to communicate with the client for sending the orders by afternoon and help in the seamless implementation,

Ø The delivery of the food produced in the factory to the company warehouse before 6 AM , to be taken cognisance me by the production manager and logistics manager. Once the order is received the production manager to facilitate a faster production and delivery to the warehouse at 5 AM.

Assigning ownership for each of the key activities to the concerned department heads for a timely solution

Selecting a project manager who will be responsible for the communication and further delegation to the team.

Finally, a minute of the meeting which is a written document to be circulated the attendees and the concerned senior management. The MoM should detail out the attendee list, issues raised and their reposes and the final decision taken.

2. Electronic communication:

An email communication send to the concerned departments plays a major role, which are best practices within organisations.

• The minutes of meetings prepared should be shared with the attendees by the project lead.
• The final decision made by the management with regard to the change in the timings of the delivery should be communicated by the senior management to the concerned teams as a message to comply with it.