The Project Communications Plan is an integral part of the operations of any significant project undertaking. Too often the business of communicating what the project is all about and particularly the impact on the corporation and indeed the local community is left to chance and is a hit and miss affair when the project authorities have the time. Many times the Project Office is contacted by the media and the importance of a communications policy and a formal plan of communications is required.
Mike Aucoin has an article in projectconnections.com web on breakdowns in communication between customers and team members. Such breakdowns can be devastating to a project. Think about applying the Mike Aucoin's advice in Managing the Customer: The Role Review, and have everyone in your project team and stakeholders "really listening". Read Mike Aucoin's article on the projectconnections.com web.
Here are some communications plan templates that may be of use in developing your Project Communications Plan.
"A work breakdown structure defines all work to be performed for project completion. It is a product-oriented structure, not an organizational structure. To develop and maintain a WBS, you must have a clear understanding of the project's objectives and the end item(s) or end product(s) of the work to be performed. The WBS elements should represent identifiable work products (e.g., hardware, software, data or related service products).
Because of its product orientation, a WBS provides the framework to plan,
track and assess the project's technical, schedule and cost performance."...
NASA Guide ....http://www.appl.nasa.gov/perf_support/tools/RefGuide3.pdf
Glen Alleman writes in a NewGrange List WBS discussion thread...
"When discussing WBS, I always seem to start with MIL HDBK 881. Everything else is "simple" from there. Here's a link to the source form http://dcarc.pae.osd.mil/ccdr_wbs.htm. Section C5.3.1 of DoD 5000.2-R is also a place to state. There are many other sources as well. Another useful starting point is http://www.nnh.com/ev/wbs2.html.
Since projects cross "work" boundaries and also cross funding sources, we have adopted a multi-WBS approach (OK two WBS's). One for project accounting one for project performance measures. This is driven by the many level of effort projects for maintenance and support that cross funding boundaries, while also have many development projects and infrastructure from multiple sources.
The use of WBS varies depending on the industries. Here in a government agency we use WBS primarily for allocating funds and getting paid through EV reporting. In aerospace WBS is used many times for allocating costs to components of an aircraft or space craft. . We also use WBS for EAC by Control Account.
In all situations I've been in care must be taken to define the "purpose" of the WBS and avoid "cooking" the numbers during things like roll up or EV calculations, since not all elements in the WBS are typically equal in units of measure (burdened dollars versus cost reimbursement dollars).
One place to look for practical examples is the Society of Cost Engineers
http://www.sceaonline.net.
A sample NASA WBS worksheet can be found at http://evm.nasa.gov/
Here's for a high tech particle accelerator
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/lcls/cdr/LCLS_CDR-ch15.pdf
The FAA has a template as well http://fast.faa.gov/wbs/wbssec.htm
And yet another NASA WEB Guide
http://appl.nasa.gov/perf_support/tools/RefGuide3.pdf "
Bill Duncan writes in the NewGrange List WBS discussion thread...
"A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge" take fundamentally different approaches. 881 says the WBS is "product oriented" and while the latter document says that the WBS should be "deliverable oriented." The distinction is non-trivial. In addition, 881 does not appear to make any allowance for a WBS that spans project life cycle phases.
I don't want to suggest that one approach is better or worse than the other; I just want to emphasize that they are different. I have some descriptive material on WBSs (no templates or examples) on my webpage ( http://www.pmpartners.com --> go to "Resources"
Two recent of US Government GAO reports on the linkage between individual performance and the success of an organization
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-488
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d03488high.pdf Highlights