Help Manual

Contents






Sigma Magic Help Version 17

Communication Plan

Overview

The Communication Plan document defines the actions the process owner has to take to keep the stakeholders in the loop. It is a structured approach to plan for communicating with the stakeholders rather than leaving the communications to chance. Lack of proper and frequent communication is one of the significant causes of project failure.

Inputs

This tool can be added to your active workbook by clicking on Change and then selecting Communication Plan. Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.
communication plan
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Analysis Type: Specify the tool format for this analysis. This selection is not enabled since there is only one format available.
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Num Rows: Specify how many rows of data you need in your worksheet. The software will draw a border around these rows and clear any data below this table.
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View Example: Click on this button to add an example worksheet. You can use the example to understand how others have filled out the tool or use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your needs better.
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Help Button: Click on this button to open the help file for this topic.
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Cancel Button: Click on this button to cancel all changes to the settings and exit this dialog box.
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Create Design: If this is your first time using this template, click this button to format the worksheet template. You can also update the worksheet format any time, but remember that you may lose any data entered on this worksheet. Once you are happy with the worksheet template layout, you must enter any required data on the worksheet. When the data entered into the worksheet is complete, you can click on Analysis Setup and then Compute Outputs to generate analysis results.
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Analyze Design: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis. Review the results of your analysis and make changes to your inputs if required to update analysis results.
Click on OK to save the control plan settings and enter the required data in the worksheet.

On the worksheet, enter the following details:
  1. The audience or the key stakeholders you want to include in the communication plan. You may want to brainstorm with the team to identify all stakeholders who can impact your project and those impacted by your project.
  2. Enter the key messages you want to convey to your stakeholders. Enter only the high-level points that will be used to craft the real message.
  3. Specify the channel for communication. The channels can be face-to-face, email, video, phone, website, share point, notice board, etc. Use the channel appropriate for the type of communication you have. If you want someone to change their way of working, your communication needs to be more personal.
  4. Specify the frequency of communication. Some communication could be one-time-only, while others may require that the message be repeated at regular intervals.
  5. Identify the sender of the communication. Some communication may come from the project leader, while others may need to come from the CEO!
  6. Specify when the communication needs to happen - this information can be updated in the project plan.
  7. If you have any update on the communication status or feedback on how the communication works, you can incorporate your comments here and use that information to improve the communication plan further.

Checklist

You will see the following dialog box if you click the Checklist button. Checklist The checklist contains a few pointers on things you must pay particular attention to while performing this analysis. The checklist has been derived from experience working on past projects. Not all the checklist items need to apply to you. However, you should carefully review the checklist and apply any recommendations that make sense for your project. Make sure to read each checklist item and mark it as completed after you have read and taken actions as appropriate for your project.
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Item: The items on the checklist are listed on the left
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Status: The status of whether the checklist has been answered is listed on the right.
Ideally, all items on the checklist should be marked as reviewed/completed.

Verify

If you click the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. Verify The software checks if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, they are shown as green-colored checkmarks. If the verification checks fail, they are shown as a red-colored cross. The verification checks are shown in the orange exclamation mark if the verification checks result in a warning. Finally, any checks required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.
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Item: The left-hand side shows the major tabs and the items checked within each section
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Status: The right-hand side shows the status of the checks.
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Overall Status: The overall status of all the checks for the given analysis is shown here. The overall status check shows a green thumps-up sign if everything is okay and a red thumps-down sign if any checks have not passed. Note that you cannot proceed with generating analysis results for some analyses if the overall status is not okay.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the computation results. A sample screenshot of the worksheet is shown below.
Communication Plan Example There are no specific graphical outputs to interpret for this analysis. If all the template elements have been filled out, you will get the following message when you click the Compute Outputs button. Communication Model Outputs Manually check it to see any gaps or problems with the communication plan.

Notes

Here are a few pointers regarding this analysis:
  • Since there are no analyses performed on the worksheet, you can feel free to modify the format of the tool to meet your requirements.

References

For more information on this topic, please refer to the following articles. Do note that if any external links are mentioned below, they are for reference purposes only.