 |  Research Projects in Statistics Joseph Kincaid,
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City
Group Communication
Implementation tips General comments on the Communication Plan
The communication plan provides you with a sneak preview of the entire semester in many ways. First, it will include the contact information and semester schedule for all the students. This provides an easy way for you to assess how busy your students are outside of class and whether they have devoted enough outside time for the project.
Second, and just as important, it is the first deliverable item on the project. The level of effort, detail, professionalism, cooperation, etc, the students have put into this deliverable gives a very strong indication of how much of each of these the students will put into the project overall. Weak areas can quickly be identified and addressed up front.
Why are there no examples of the Communication Plan?
When I wrote the first version of the booklet, I didn’t have any examples of a Communication Plan to use. The two example groups presented in the book went through the course before a Communication Plan was a required component.
During the first semester I required a Communication Plan, I realized the value of leaving the format up to the students. Not only would I have good preview of many issues important to the project’s ultimate success (as outlined above), but also the students were not restricted by a single layout or format and were able to customize their Communication Plan for their own special situations.
At this point, my preference is to continue to omit examples of the Communication Plan so that the students are required to work through issues of effort, detail, professionalism, cooperation, etc. However, in some situations, there may be considerable value in a consistent format for the Communication Plan. If this describes your situation, you may want to make an example available to your students through a handout or a web page.
Points for the Communication Plan
I recommend assigning 5—10% of the points for the project to the communication plan.
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2004 McGraw-Hill Higher Education