Project Communications Management is Knowledge Area 7 in PMBOK 6. It has three processes: Plan Communications Management (who needs what information, when, and how), Manage Communications (create, share and store the information) and Monitor Communications (check that people are actually getting what they need). Communication is not just sending information. It is making sure the right person gets the right message, in the right format, at the right time, and understands it the way you meant it. PMP study material often says a project manager spends about 90% of their time communicating, which is why this area links so closely to your daily work.
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From my experience: On my UAE construction projects I worked with clients, consultants, subcontractors and authorities from more than 20 nationalities. Most of the problems I saw did not start with the engineering. They started with a message that was sent but not understood: a revised drawing that never reached the site foreman, or a verbal instruction from the consultant that nobody confirmed in writing. When I teach this to my PMP students, I tell them that "I sent the email" is not the same as "they understood it".
This page is my exam-focused view of communications: the processes, the formula and the traps PMI likes to test. If you want the practical side, read my guide to communication planning, or grab my ready-made communication plan template for your project. This page is for understanding the concepts and passing the exam.
Every project manager communicates all day: meetings, status reports, emails, briefings, quick calls. But ask the same people if they have a written communications plan, and many will say no.
That gap causes real trouble. People get reports they do not need and miss the ones they do. A detailed report lands with a senior manager who only wanted three lines. Decisions get made without the right people in the room. Problems appear in front of the sponsor because nobody reported them through the normal channel.
The three PMBOK processes are there to close that gap and turn communication into something you plan, do and check. On this page you will find the three processes with their inputs, tools and outputs, the communication model, the channels formula, the three communication methods (interactive, push, pull), the dimensions of communication, common barriers, and how it all works in agile, predictive and hybrid projects.
Foundational Concepts
The Foundations of Project Communication
Before the three processes, learn three basics: the communication model, the channels formula and the three communication methods.
Match the method to the message and the audience.
The Communication Model: How Information Flows
Basic Communication Model: Sender → Message → Receiver
Sender
Encodes message
→
Transmission
Medium / Channel
⚡ NOISE ⚡
Reception
Message received
→
Receiver
Decodes message
→
Feedback
Acknowledges
Encode
The sender translates thoughts into a message: choosing words, format, tone and medium. The encoding is influenced by the sender's knowledge, culture, experience and assumptions about the receiver.
Noise
Any interference that distorts the message between sender and receiver. Can be physical (poor audio), semantic (different terminology), psychological (preconceptions), cultural (different norms), or environmental (distractions). Noise causes messages to be received differently from how they were intended.
Decode
The receiver interprets the message: translating words, tone and context into meaning. Decoding is influenced by the receiver's knowledge, culture, experience and assumptions. The decoded message may differ from the encoded message even without deliberate distortion.
Medium
The channel through which the message travels: email, meeting, phone call, written report, presentation, instant message. The choice of medium significantly affects how the message is received. Rich media (face-to-face) carry more contextual information than lean media (email).
Feedback
The receiver's response that confirms the message was received and understood. Feedback closes the communication loop: without it, the sender cannot verify that the intended message was actually received. Absence of feedback is not confirmation of understanding.
Acknowledgement
Confirmation that a message was received: distinct from feedback indicating the message was understood or agreed with. A team member who acknowledges an email may not have read it carefully; feedback confirming understanding is a higher standard than simple acknowledgement.
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The sender's responsibility: In PMBOK, the sender must make sure the message is clear, complete and understood. The receiver confirms through feedback. If a message was sent but not understood, that is a communication failure, and the sender has to fix it. A project manager who says "I sent that email three weeks ago" is describing a communication failure, not a stakeholder failure.
How do you calculate communication channels?
Communication Channels: The Formula and Its Implications
Channels = n × (n − 1) / 2
Here n is the number of people (stakeholders). The formula gives the number of possible two-way channels between every pair of people. As the group grows, the channels grow much faster than the headcount, so planning becomes more and more important.
2
stakeholders
1 channel
5
stakeholders
10 channels
10
stakeholders
45 channels
20
stakeholders
190 channels
Add one person to a group of 10 (going from 10 to 11) and the channels go from 45 to 55, a 22% jump from one new person. A project with 50 people has 1,225 possible channels. That is why big projects need a written communications plan.
Communication Methods
What are the three communication methods?
PMBOK groups communication methods into three types. The type you choose decides whether feedback is immediate, and whether you can check that the message was received and understood.
Interactive Communication
Live, two-way (or more) exchange. People can ask questions and confirm understanding straight away. It is the richest method because it carries tone, context and, in person, body language.
You send information to specific people who need it. It is one-way: the receiver does not have to reply. It makes sure the message reaches the right people, but it does not tell you whether they read or understood it.
Email communications
Status reports distributed to stakeholders
Letters, memos and formal correspondence
Meeting minutes distributed post-session
Press releases and announcements
Voicemail messages
Routine updates, wide distribution, information that doesn't require immediate response, formal notifications
Pull Communication
Information sits in a central place and people go and get it when they need it. Best for large amounts of information or reference material that not everyone needs at the same time.
Project intranet or SharePoint sites
Document management systems
Knowledge bases and wikis
Lessons learned repositories
Project portals and dashboards
Online training and e-learning modules
Reference documentation, large file distributions, self-service information access, project archives
The Three Processes
Project Communications Management: The 3 PMBOK Processes
10.1
Plan Communications Management
Planning Process Group · Develops an appropriate approach and plan for project communications based on stakeholder information needs
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Plan Communications Management is where you work out a communications approach based on what each stakeholder needs, what the organisation already has, and what the project needs. Its main output is the Communications Management Plan: the reference for who gets what, when, in what format, through which channel and from whom.
You start from the stakeholder register. Each stakeholder has different information needs. The sponsor wants exception reports and cost performance. The team wants task details and specifications. The steering group wants milestones and risk status. An authority may only need compliance updates. One report for everyone rarely works.
Key decisions in the Communications Management Plan:
What: The specific information to be communicated: project status, risks, issues, decisions, milestones, financial performance, change requests
Who: The sender and the intended audience for each communication type
When: The frequency and timing: weekly status report, monthly steering group, exception reports on trigger
Format: The structure and level of detail: dashboard, narrative report, presentation, data extract
Channel: The medium: email, meeting, project portal, formal written report
Escalation procedures: The path for escalating issues and exceptions beyond the PM's authority
Glossary: Consistent terminology to ensure common understanding across stakeholder groups
Communication requirements analysis is the main technique here. You list what each stakeholder group needs and map it to a specific report, meeting or update. This stops both under-communication (people missing what they need) and over-communication (so much information that the important part gets ignored).
Inputs
Project Charter
Project Management Plan (Resource, Stakeholder Engagement Plans)
Executing Process Group · Creates, collects, distributes, stores, retrieves and manages project information
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Manage Communications is the executing process where you carry out the plan: write the status reports, run the meetings, publish the dashboard, send the minutes, look after the document store and make sure people can find what they need.
It also covers communication skills, not just sending documents. Active listening (really listening instead of waiting for your turn to talk) is named as a key skill. Body language, eye contact and tone often carry as much meaning as the words. Communication styles differ by culture, seniority and background, so good project managers adjust their style to the audience.
Information management systems are the tools that support all this: email, collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams or Slack, document systems such as SharePoint or Confluence, project tools and video meeting tools. Pick tools that fit the plan and that your stakeholders can actually use.
Key challenges in Manage Communications:
Information overload: Sending too much information to too many people: causing important messages to be missed in a flood of irrelevant content
Inconsistent messaging: Different stakeholders receiving different versions of project status, leading to confusion and loss of trust
Informal channel bypass: Important decisions or changes being communicated informally (hallway conversations, informal emails) without being captured in the formal project record
Cultural and language barriers: Misunderstandings arising from different cultural communication norms or language differences in international projects
Monitoring & Controlling Process Group · Ensures information needs of project and stakeholders are met throughout the project lifecycle
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Monitor Communications checks that the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are being met. Is the plan being followed? Are the reports doing their job? Does the approach need to change as the project moves on?
This is harder than checking whether a report was sent. You need to know whether people are actually informed, whether the communication is helping engagement, and whether there are gaps or overload. Feedback from stakeholders, formal and informal, is your main source.
Communication effectiveness indicators to monitor:
Stakeholder engagement levels changing over time: are key stakeholders becoming less engaged, suggesting communications are not meeting their needs?
Recurring questions or misunderstandings about the same topics: suggesting the relevant communications are unclear or not reaching the right audience
Stakeholders surfacing issues in escalation channels that should have been managed through normal status reporting: suggesting reporting is not effective
Team members not aware of decisions or changes: suggesting internal communication is breaking down
Information technology issues preventing access to project communications or documentation
When you find a gap, update the Communications Management Plan: change the distribution list, the report format, the frequency or the channel. These updates go through integrated change control.
The 3 communications management processes at a glance
Process
Process group
Key output
Plan Communications Management
Planning
Communications management plan
Manage Communications
Executing
Project communications
Monitor Communications
Monitoring and Controlling
Work performance information
Source: PMBOK Guide, 6th edition (PMI).
Dimensions of Communication: What the PM Must Plan For
Every message can vary in several ways. For each one, make a choice on purpose instead of falling back on habit.
✦Internal vs External
Internal communication flows within the project team and the sponsoring organisation: status updates, team meetings, internal escalations, steering group reports. External communication flows outside the organisation: to clients, suppliers, regulators, media and the public. External communications typically require higher levels of review, approval and sensitivity. Many organisations have specific policies governing external communications that must be incorporated into the project's Communications Management Plan.
✦Formal vs Informal
Formal communication follows defined channels with defined formats: project reports, meeting minutes, change request forms, contract correspondence. It creates an auditable record. Informal communication is unstructured and ad hoc: conversations, quick messages, informal check-ins. Informal communication is often faster and more effective for relationship-building but does not create a record. Critical decisions or commitments that arise in informal conversations must be confirmed through formal channels to be contractually and governance-effective.
✦Vertical vs Horizontal
Vertical communication flows up and down the organisational hierarchy: upward (progress reports, escalations, requests for decisions) and downward (instructions, objectives, priorities, feedback). Horizontal communication flows between peers at the same organisational level: cross-functional coordination, peer-to-peer problem solving, team collaboration. Both are necessary for effective project delivery; most communication planning focuses on vertical (reporting) but horizontal (team coordination) communication is equally important.
✦Official vs Unofficial
Official communication is sanctioned and endorsed by the project governance framework. It carries the authority of the PM or the project board. Unofficial communication includes rumours, informal hallway discussions and speculation. Unofficial communication is inevitable in any project environment, particularly during periods of uncertainty or change. Effective PMs manage this by ensuring official communication is sufficiently frequent, honest and transparent that the rumour network is not filling a vacuum left by insufficient official communication.
✦Written vs Oral
Written communication (emails, reports, documentation) creates a record, allows precise wording, and can be reviewed multiple times, but is slower, less nuanced and can be misinterpreted without tone. Oral communication (meetings, calls) is faster, richer, and allows immediate feedback, but leaves no record unless minutes or notes are taken. Critical conversations should be confirmed in writing. Complex technical or contractual matters are almost always better addressed in written form first, discussed orally, then confirmed in writing again.
✦Synchronous vs Asynchronous
Synchronous communication happens in real time: all parties participate simultaneously (meetings, calls). Asynchronous communication is time-shifted: parties engage at different times (email, message platforms, recorded presentations). Synchronous communication is richer but requires scheduling alignment and is less efficient for routine information exchange. Distributed and global teams rely heavily on asynchronous communication but must invest in periodic synchronous touchpoints to maintain relationships and resolve complex issues.
Communication Barriers
Common Barriers to Effective Project Communication
Communication barriers: what prevents messages from being received as intended
Cultural Differences
Different cultures have different norms for directness, hierarchy, disagreement, silence and non-verbal cues. What is considered clear and direct in one culture may be perceived as rude or aggressive in another. High-context cultures (where meaning is implied by context) vs low-context cultures (where meaning is explicit) create significant misunderstanding in international projects.
Language and Technical Jargon
Technical terminology that is clear to one audience is opaque to another. Project managers often communicate across functional boundaries where jargon differs. IT terminology to business stakeholders, financial language to technical teams. The PM must translate between domains without assuming shared vocabulary. This is also the most common barrier in multi-language international projects.
Information Overload
Sending too much information overwhelms receivers and causes important messages to be missed. Stakeholders who receive status reports containing 40 pages of detail when they need 2 paragraphs learn to stop reading. Calibrating communication volume to audience attention capacity is as important as the content itself. More communication is not always better communication.
Physical Distance and Time Zones
Geographically distributed teams face communication barriers that co-located teams do not: delayed responses across time zones, poor audio quality on international calls, absence of body language in voice calls, and the erosion of relationship quality without face-to-face interaction. These barriers require deliberate mitigation through communication planning.
Perceptual Filters and Assumptions
Receivers interpret messages through the filter of their own experience, expectations and biases. A stakeholder who expects bad news may interpret a neutral status update negatively. A team member who has a poor relationship with the PM may read criticism into routine feedback. The PM must account for these filters by crafting messages that explicitly address likely misinterpretations.
Organisational Politics
Organisational dynamics influence what information gets shared, with whom, and in what form. Stakeholders may withhold information for competitive reasons, share selectively to advance their agenda, or filter messages passing through them. PMs operating in politically complex environments must develop multiple communication channels and verify that information is flowing accurately rather than assuming it is.
Poor Listening
Communication failure is as often a listening failure as a speaking failure. Stakeholders who are distracted, forming responses while the PM is still speaking, or filtering input through strong preconceptions may miss key messages entirely. Active listening techniques, summarising, paraphrasing, asking clarifying questions, help ensure messages are actually received rather than superficially acknowledged.
Inappropriate Channel Selection
Using the wrong communication medium for the message type creates barriers to effective communication. Delivering critical negative feedback by email removes the tone and body language that soften difficult messages and prevent misinterpretation. Holding a 30-person meeting to share information that could be an email wastes time and signals poor communication judgment. Channel selection should match message complexity, emotional sensitivity and the need for immediate feedback.
Interrelation to Other Knowledge Areas
How Communications Management Connects to Every Other Knowledge Area
✦KA01: Integration Management
The Communications Management Plan is a subsidiary component of the Project Management Plan. Every change to the project, scope, schedule, cost, risk, must be communicated through defined channels. Change requests require communication to obtain approvals; approved changes must be communicated to all affected parties to prevent teams continuing to work to obsolete plans. The project manager's leadership role, their most impactful integration activity, is exercised primarily through communication. Status reporting, the primary mechanism of project control, is a communications management activity.
✦KA02: Scope Management
Requirements gathering is fundamentally a communication activity: eliciting, documenting and validating scope requires clear communication between PMs, business analysts and stakeholders. Scope baseline documents must be communicated to all parties doing the work: work performed against an undefined or miscommunicated scope is a leading cause of rework. Validate Scope (customer acceptance) requires formal communication of what has been delivered for review and sign-off. Scope changes must be communicated to all affected team members before implementation.
✦KA03: Schedule Management
The project schedule is one of the most frequently communicated project artefacts. Different stakeholders need different schedule views: a detailed Gantt for the PM, milestone summaries for the steering group, sprint plans for Agile teams. Schedule variances must be communicated to relevant stakeholders promptly: particularly when critical path activities are delayed. The Communications Management Plan defines what schedule information goes to whom and in what format, preventing both under-reporting (surprises) and over-reporting (noise).
✦KA04: Cost Management
Cost performance information, CPI, EAC, VAC, budget vs actual, must be communicated accurately and appropriately to different audiences. A CPI of 0.83 communicated to a finance director requires different framing than the same figure communicated to the project team. Financial reporting has regulatory and governance dimensions that impose formal requirements on format, accuracy and timeliness. Cost forecasts that are not communicated promptly when they deteriorate allow cost overruns to compound before corrective action is taken.
✦KA05: Quality Management
Quality reports, audit findings, non-conformance notices and test results are all formal communications governed by the Communications Management Plan. Quality metrics must be communicated clearly to be actionable: a defect density figure without context (trend direction, comparison to target, root cause analysis) does not enable decision-making. Poorly communicated quality information, ambiguous RAG status, missing context, inconsistent definitions, is itself a quality failure in the project management process.
✦KA06: Resource Management
Team development depends on effective communication infrastructure. Virtual teams require deliberate communication planning, collaboration tools, meeting cadences, asynchronous norms, to compensate for absent face-to-face interaction. Conflict (a Manage Team activity) often originates in communication failures: unclear expectations, misunderstood feedback, information withheld between team members. The Team Charter (a Resource Management output) defines communication norms within the team. Performance feedback is a communication activity with significant impact on team morale and development.
✦KA08: Risk Management
Risk communication is one of the most sensitive and consequential communications in the project. Under-communicating risks (to protect a relationship or avoid difficult conversations) allows risks to compound unmanaged. Over-communicating risks (presenting unfiltered risk registers to all stakeholders) creates anxiety and political exposure without enabling useful decisions. The Communications Management Plan must specify how risks are reported: to whom, at what level of detail, with what contextual framing. Risk escalation paths must be clearly defined and triggered appropriately.
✦KA09: Procurement Management
Supplier communications must be carefully managed: informal communications that could be interpreted as instructions create contractual exposure. The contract defines formal communication channels: who can instruct the supplier, in what format, with what authority. Bidder conferences (during Conduct Procurements) require equal communication with all potential suppliers. Contract performance reporting (Control Procurements) is governed by the contractual communication requirements. Disputes often arise from informal communications that created contractual expectations without formal approval.
✦KA10: Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder management and communications management are so intertwined they use some of the same tools and the Stakeholder Register is a direct input to Plan Communications Management. The distinction is: Stakeholder Management focuses on understanding and influencing stakeholder attitudes and behaviour; Communications Management focuses on delivering the right information to the right people. The two plans must be developed together, the stakeholder engagement plan informs communication needs; the communications plan is how those needs are met. Stakeholder engagement levels are partly influenced by the quality of communications they receive.
Agile and Hybrid Approaches
Communications Management in Agile, Waterfall and Hybrid Environments
Communications in Waterfall
Traditional waterfall communications follow the full three-process PMBOK model with formal communication artefacts:
Formal Communications Management Plan developed during planning
Structured weekly/monthly status reports to defined distribution lists
Formal stage gate reporting packages for steering group review
Exception reports triggered by defined variance thresholds
Formal change communication processes: approved changes distributed to all affected parties
Project records maintained in formal document management systems
Meeting minutes as official project record for all governance meetings
Escalation paths formally defined in governance documentation
Strength: Clear governance and auditability. Every communication is planned and recorded. Challenge: Can become bureaucratic: communication overhead grows disproportionately in large, complex projects.
Communications in Agile
Agile favours face-to-face communication and working software over comprehensive documentation:
Daily standups: 15-minute daily synchronisation: what was done, what will be done, what is blocked. Real-time team communication replacing written status updates
Sprint reviews: Demonstration of working software to stakeholders every sprint: "working software over comprehensive documentation"
Sprint retrospectives: Team communication about process improvement: how communication itself can be improved
Information radiators: Kanban boards, burn-down charts, velocity charts visible to all: passive broadcast communication replacing formal reports
Product backlog: The living priority list as a communication artefact: what the team is working on, what comes next
Colocation (physical or virtual) to maximise informal communication bandwidth
Product owner as the communication bridge between business stakeholders and the delivery team
Strength: High-bandwidth, low-latency communication creates rapid feedback loops. Challenge: Informal communication is harder to audit and may not satisfy governance requirements in regulated environments.
Hybrid Communications
In hybrid projects, the formal reporting (steering group reports, exceptions, change communication) stays at the programme level, while delivery teams use agile practices such as stand-ups, sprint reviews and information radiators. The project manager links the two: turning sprint data into programme status reports, and turning programme decisions into backlog priorities.
Exam Tips
Communications Management: 7 Exam Tips for PMP and APM PMQ
1
Know the communication channels formula cold: n(n−1)/2. This is one of the most reliably tested calculation questions on the PMP exam. Common scenarios: "A project adds 3 team members going from 7 to 10. How many additional channels are created?" (45 − 21 = 24 additional channels). Practise the formula with different n values until it is reflexive.
2
The sender is responsible for clarity and confirmation of understanding, not just transmission. A common PMP trap: the sender who claims to have communicated because they sent an email. PMBOK places the responsibility for clear communication on the sender. If the message was not understood, the sender must address it: regardless of whether the email was sent and received.
3
Know the three communication methods and when each is appropriate. Interactive (real-time, two-way: meetings, calls) for complex decisions and sensitive topics. Push (one-way to defined recipients: email, reports) for routine status updates. Pull (self-service repository: SharePoint, project portal) for reference documentation. Exam scenarios describe a communication need: match it to the most appropriate method.
4
About 90% of a PM's time is spent communicating. This figure appears in many PMP prep materials. Use it as a reminder: when a question asks for the most important skill of a project manager, communication is usually the answer, ahead of technical or scheduling skills.
5
Noise in the communication model is not just sound. It is any interference distorting the message. Noise includes semantic noise (different vocabulary), psychological noise (preconceptions), cultural noise (different norms), and physical noise (technical problems). Exam scenarios describing misunderstandings or miscommunications are asking about noise and barriers, the answer involves addressing the root cause of the distortion, not just repeating the message.
6
Communications Management and Stakeholder Management are related but distinct. Stakeholder Management focuses on engagement and influence: understanding and managing stakeholder attitudes. Communications Management focuses on information delivery: ensuring the right information reaches the right people. The exam frequently tests the distinction: a question about a disengaged stakeholder is primarily a Stakeholder Management issue; a question about a stakeholder not receiving important information is primarily a Communications Management issue.
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Update the plan when stakeholders change. A new stakeholder changes the channel count, the information needs and maybe the methods. A plan that never changes soon stops working. Monitor Communications (process 10.3 in the PMBOK 6 numbering) is where you spot these gaps. The exam wants you to treat the plan as a living document.
Worked exam example: the channels question
This is how I walk my PMP students through it. Your team has 8 people including you. Two more people join. How many extra communication channels are there?
Before: 8 x 7 / 2 = 28 channels.
After: 10 x 9 / 2 = 45 channels.
Extra channels: 45 - 28 = 17.
Read the question twice. If it asks for the total, the answer is 45. If it asks for the increase, it is 17. Most wrong answers I see come from answering the wrong one. Also check whether the question says to include the project manager. If it says "a team of 8 plus the project manager", n is 9, not 8.
Other mistakes I see in mock exams:
Choosing "send an email" for a sensitive or complex issue. Pick interactive communication.
Treating a disengaged stakeholder as a communications problem first. That is usually stakeholder engagement.
Forgetting that the sender must check understanding, not just send.
Apply This Knowledge Area in Your PMP or APM PMQ Exam
Communications questions, including the channels formula, the communication model, the methods and the difference between Plan, Manage and Monitor Communications, appear on both the PMP and the APM PMQ. On the PMP, the 2026 exam follows the Exam Content Outline and PMBOK 8 rather than these PMBOK 6 processes, but the ideas show up in many situational questions.
The three PMBOK 6 processes in Project Communications Management (Knowledge Area 7) are: (1) Plan Communications Management (Planning): find out what information each stakeholder needs and write the Communications Management Plan. (2) Manage Communications (Executing): carry out the plan by creating, sharing and storing project information. Main output: Project Communications. (3) Monitor Communications (Monitoring and Controlling): check whether information needs are being met, find gaps, and update the plan. Outputs include Work Performance Information and Change Requests.
The formula is n(n-1)/2, where n is the number of stakeholders. It gives the number of possible two-way channels. 5 people have 10 channels, 10 people have 45 and 20 people have 190. Adding one person to a group of 10 takes you from 45 to 55 channels, a 22% increase. Channels grow much faster than headcount, which is why bigger projects need a written plan. It is one of the most common calculation questions on the PMP exam.
Interactive is live, two-way exchange: meetings, calls, video calls, chat conversations. You get feedback straight away, so use it for complex decisions and sensitive topics. Push is sent to specific people with no reply needed: emails, status reports, minutes. It reaches many people quickly but does not confirm they read or understood it. Pull is stored centrally for people to access when they need it: SharePoint sites, project portals, knowledge bases. Use it for large amounts of reference material.
The sender encodes a message (turns thoughts into words and format) and sends it through a medium. On the way, noise can distort it: poor audio, different vocabulary, assumptions or cultural norms. The receiver decodes it using their own knowledge and experience, then gives feedback to show it was received and understood. The main lesson: the message received can be different from the message sent, and the sender is responsible for checking that it was understood.
Predictive (waterfall) projects use formal communication: planned status reports, stage gate packs, exception reports when variances pass a threshold, and minutes as the official record. Most of it is push. Agile prefers face-to-face talk and working demos over heavy documents: daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, information radiators such as Kanban boards and burndown charts, and a product owner who links the business and the team. In hybrid projects, formal programme reporting sits alongside agile team practices, and the project manager translates between the two.
A good Communications Management Plan usually includes: what each stakeholder group needs and how they prefer to get it; each communication type (status report, steering group pack, team meeting, exception report) with its purpose, format, detail and frequency; who sends it and who receives it; the method and channel (meeting, email or shared repository); escalation steps; a schedule linked to the project schedule; a glossary of terms; the tools to be used; and how the plan will be updated as the project changes.
