Communication Management using Service Blueprint

Developed by Prasad Jagtap

Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within or between an organization, it also refers to the dissemination of new communication directives connected with an organization, network, or certain technology. In terms of Project Management, Communication Management is grouping processes based on the requirement to meet the information needs of a project and relevant stakeholders. The Pulse study also revealed that the most crucial success factor in project management is effective communications to all stakeholders.

Communication and group interaction are commonly cited regarding the quality, effectiveness, and satisfaction of group decision-making. This is where the question arouses, mostly, it is seen that the organization’s effectiveness and efficiency are evaluated high or as referred to as thriving in the market when all the relevant and responsible individuals in the departments work in alignment, have transparency and subtle engagement considering the certainty of work culture in cross-departments. However, few of the organizations tend to hardly perform or to refer to the term surviving or die slowly in the market, considering the terms as depicted in the efficiency vs effectiveness matrix .

For successful overall management, a communication management plan must be developed. A study by the Project Management Institution (PMI) reveals that inadequate communication is responsible for one-fifth of project failures. It has to be done in such a way that it is closely aligned with organizational strategy, governance management, and portfolio performance management. Part of the communication management process is to select the most effective communication strategy. In order to make the communications/flow of information throughout the functional departments more stable and transparent, the respective article discusses the scope, applicability, theoretical practices, and limitations of the Service Blueprint model.

Service Blueprint is leveraged to understand cross-functional relationships and make front and back-stage processes more aligned. In a retrospect, it also helps visualize the relationships between different service components; people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes that are directly tied to touchpoints in a specific service lifecycle.

Communications Management

Communications Management in the context of the project focuses on developing a strategy by establishing effective communication between the relevant stakeholders, it also focuses on performing the activities to adhere to the formed communication strategy. It also falls in a retrospect, considering an effective and efficient flow of information as an outcome. It employs the process required to ensure timely generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval, and disposal of project distribution.

This integral part of the process can therefore be briefly classified into respective parts;

• Communications planning
• Information distribution
• Performance reporting
• Managing stakeholders

These processes communicate with one another contributing to the success of project communications management, considering each process including a certain group of individuals based on the project requirement. The art of communications is a broad subject and it involves a substantial body of know-how as represented in the respective schematic.

Figure 1: Communication model, from (PMBOK) .

The individual components in the communications model are supposed to be considered primitive when discussing communication on the project level. The corresponding model illustrates ideas or information as sent and/or received between two individuals or a group of individuals.

Communications planning

Planning communication is the process of developing an essence of a legitimate approach, accordingly, plan for communication activities, depending on the requirement of the project, its stakeholders, and the available organizational resources. When a controversial project is been worked upon, the solution can seldom be strengthening the communications with relevant stakeholders. Whereas the project might not even change significantly from its original plan, but mere communication with stakeholders can often work out as the deal-breaker which embarks the project to succeed. PMBOK dictates that standard communication needs such as progress updates, investor circulars must be initially identified, and their content must be planned out in advance in the form of a Communications Management Plan . For managers to plan and map the projects in the early phase, distinct tools and models are used to create a layout to maintain smooth communication throughout the timeline by leveraging performance indicators like; requirement gathering and analysis, stakeholder assessment matrix, project scheduler, portfolio register, Gantt Chart, etc.

Information distribution

Once done with creating the plan, it has to be pursued. Therefore, during the project execution phase, managing communications can stand as a major factor between a successful project and a failed one. Information distribution indulges in making information available to the relevant stakeholders in a certain period. Information distribution also involves implementing the Communications Management Plan, as well as acknowledging the impromptu requests for information. The process of creating, manipulating, and recording the communications is an important part and a major aspect in terms of project management, which thus requires perpetual support from the monitoring entity, may that be a Project manager . A few driving key performance indicators could be; communication technology, communication tools like presentations, feedback, peer reviews, performance management information systems, project scheduler, etc.

Performance reporting

Referring to other classified concepts, communication, and its management are important and constitute the overall success of a project, whereas a presence of an entity or governing body that strongly controls the flow of information is responsible for monitoring the activities which support as an essential piece of a puzzle. The performance reporting process associates the assortment of standard data, disposal or performance information to the stakeholders.

The iterative process involves the communications on the project level at the current point in the project, to be adequate. As part of the monitoring & controlling process group, the controlling manager must include communication control at regular status update points. At the same time, effectiveness analysis, quality control, scope validation, and the other project control items take place, the governing body must ensure that each stakeholder has received the appropriate amount of information and whether anything is needed to be updated . The performance reporting deals with the know-how of affiliated resources being used to deliver the project outcomes. A few random tools or Key Performance Indicators could be; assessing work performance data, enterprise environmental factors, organizational assets, change requests, issue log/register, stakeholder register, etc.

Managing stakeholders

Stakeholder management deals with managing the communications/flow of information to gratify the requirements, resolve issues if any with the relevant project stakeholders. Adaptive and effective managing stakeholders boosts the chances that the project shall remain on track, improving the ability of individuals to operate in harmony by limiting the interruptions during the project timeline. The governing body which is responsible for stakeholder management is the project manager . Relevant tools and design-based models to perceive the stakeholder management could be maintaining communications management plan, organizational process assets, improvising communication methods, project issue register, approved change requests, corrective measures, and adaptive actions.

Challenges in Communications Management

Communications Management ensures the flow of information concerning the project by respecting the assigned time with high priority. Communication is practiced both internally and externally amongst the allocated resources and other relevant stakeholders. These stakeholders are often responsible to influence the project outcome which shall make productive communication, most important part of the management considering a project’s perspective. However, there is a high degree of complexity and uncertainty while simply practicing communication and/or flow of information. The respective sub-sections touch the base in regards to the potential challenges in communications management may confront.

Complexity in Communications Mangement

One important factor about communication being an utmost priority is that oftentimes, the communication medium is not considered prior, which raises the chances of complexity in communicating among the cross-functional departments. Another important factor raising complexity while communicating is improper time management of resources. Considering the scope of the project, ‘n’ number of resources must be allotted to a certain timeframe, if these resources are unaware of project meetings, their milestones, and cumulative milestones, it would reflect a less productive outcome. Some areas of communication may need encouragement, whilst others may be excessive. Having an unrealistic count of meetings can sometimes result in nothing, which ultimately reflects in decreasing the productivity of the resources. Lack of knowledge transfer shall increase complexity in understanding and can lead to the waste of time if important information is not perceived by desired/targeted stakeholders.

One of the most potent and important factors that could be discussed is that many communication management issues lie due to the technological gap in the hierarchy and/or cross-functional departments, which naturally creates a void due to technological intricacy. In order to confront such a scenario, the responsible resources shall be mandated to get trained and acquainted with the applicability and practicality of the corresponding tool or platform.

Uncertainty in Communications Mangement

Uncertainty is a state of limited knowledge, where it is impossible to exactly describe the existing state, a future outcome, or more than one possible outcome. Considering challenges in uncertainty shall help create a vast list, however, it can be handled by thoroughly encountering the challenges. Potential challenges could be identified; one of them being, an unclear idea about cross-functional departments and/or transparency issues with the internal or external departments.

Uncertainty should be at its peak when a few departments, working on the same project shall have a communication void. This communication gap generally helps build an unclear decision gate for a few relevant stakeholders, leading to uncertainty considering timeline and promised deliverables. This mainly hampers the alignment on inter-department level work due to its non-regulated and non-monitored work culture. Another important factor that could lead to a higher degree of uncertainty is having an unclear idea or opinion about the workload of different stakeholders (internal or external) considering the designated task shall be done within a scope which reciprocates the unclear scope clarification.

Service Blueprint

Good governance is at the heart of any successful business. An organization needs to achieve its objectives and drive improvement, as well as maintain legal and ethical standing in the eyes of internal & external stakeholders, regulators, and the wider community. However, the service blueprint is one of the innovative tools which helps organization govern the processes appropriately. It’s one of the applications that is diagnosing problems with operational efficiency.

The service process can be viewed as a chain or constellation of activities that allow the service to function effectively. Service blueprinting is a flexible approach that helps with the challenges of service process design and analysis. It is a powerful technique and tool that can facilitate the detailed refinement of a single step in the customer process as well as the creation of a comprehensive, visual overview of an entire process by emphasizing the cross-departmental flow of information.

In order to overcome all the challenges from the complexity and uncertainty perspectives as highlighted in the above sub-sections of the article, the service blueprint model can be leveraged by an organization or a project controlling board that is struggling with the essential communication management or can be practiced by the governing body which is responsible to manage the scope of the project, portfolio and/or program in a retrospect, considering an effective and efficient flow of information as an outcome.

Application of model

Processes are dependent on human, interpersonal delivery systems, suggesting a need to focus on process and experience innovation. Service processes are believed to be fluid, dynamic, and frequently co-produced in real-time by customers, employees, and technology, often labeled as relevant stakeholders. In the case of a service blueprint, the fundamental premise is the importance of performance management, where research shows meaningful experiences and the resulting emotional bonds between the internal and external stakeholders being more important than rational motivations in creating communications stability and coherence. In comparison to other process-oriented designs, the service blueprint is the first and foremost stakeholder-focused, allowing firms to visualize the service processes, points of contact, and the physical evidence associated with their services from their client’s perspective by actually connecting their back-stage operations with the front-stage operations. The blueprint helps illuminate and connect the underlying support processes throughout the organization that drives and supports external stakeholder-focused service execution.

Figure 2: Service Blueprint

The application of the model is quite simple but could get complex if perceived otherwise. Typically, there are key elements of a typical service blueprint.

• External actions (Customer/Client actions)
• Frontstage/Visible actions
• Backstage/Invisible actions
• Processes

External actions include all the steps that the client takes as part of the delivery process. These actions are illustrated chronologically across the top of the blueprint. Customer actions deal with the external part of the communication workflow. These actions are central to the creation of the blueprint and are depicted so that all other activities shall support the value proposition as offered. The actions could also be labeled as part of the processes, choices, and interactions that clients perform while interacting to reach a certain goal.

Front-stage/visible actions are separated from the external actions by the line of interaction. These actions of frontline contact resources that occur as part of a face-to-face encounter are recalled as front-stage/visible contact actions. Every time the line of interaction is crossed via a link from the external end to contact front-end resource (or company) a moment of truth occurs. These actions could be person-to-person contact or person-to-interface contact.

Backstage/invisible actions are separated from the visible actions by a line of visibility. Everything that appears above the line of visibility can be tracked and monitored by external stakeholders, while everything below this line is invisible. Below the line of visibility, all other resource actions are featured, those indulge invisible interaction with external stakeholders as well as any other part of processes that resources perform in order to serve the clients or that are part of their responsibilities in the respective line of work considering performance management.

Processes are separated from the internal resources by the internal line of interaction. These are the activities that are carried out by an individual, a group of individuals, or different units/sub-departments within the organization who are not essentially assigned resources but that need to happen for a particular service to be delivered.

Vertical lines from the support area connecting with other areas of the blueprint show the inter-functional connections and support that are essential to delivering the service.

There are honorary/secondary components that drive the context and business goals by introducing the additional elements as needed by the governing board. These secondary elements can be determined based on then needs i.e could be tailor-made as suitable to the respective project or program. For example, the below components are considered crucial;

• Metrics
• Evidence
• Time
• Policies

Metrics is one of the honorary components that gradually helps record the success in terms of metrics or data, considering the type of metric is the time spent on various processes or the financial costs associated with the resources. These numbers shall help the governing body identify where time or money has been highly utilized due to miscommunication or inefficiencies.

For each external activity, and every moment of truth, the evidence that stakeholders come in contact with is described at the start of the blueprint. These are all the tangibles that relevant stakeholders are introduced to, which can help influence their quality perceptions.

Time is considered as a primary component in the service processes to channelize an estimated duration for each activity, which should be essentially represented in the blueprint.

Policies determine a complete set of activities, this decision gate shall help stakeholders understand the essentiality of the model while performing cross-communication in between different key elements by understanding what can and cannot be changed as they proceed.

Limitations

In order to manage the dynamics within the communications area, a common standard shall be considered. The resources having an efficient and effective communication, shall be considered into account. Setting a standard or regulating certain policies shall strengthen the legacy method of the flow of information or communication pattern which shall help improve the reporting structure for projects that are a part of the program. However, communications management is an iterative process that shall be adaptable to encounter the needs of the relevant stakeholders over time as the project emerge.

Once the process is signified and managed as mentioned in the key components part of the model, the flow of information and cross-departmental acknowledgment is required, based on which, honorary elements shall be optimized per need, which shall be decided by the governing body. However, sometimes, the governing body has to deal with multiple sub-issues which can also be referred to as symptoms of the key problem. It is quite evident that no model or structure is competent to manage the outcome to its fullest by being highly effective and efficient. It can be a scenario where a particular respondent from any of the departments shall express frustration with obtaining organizational commitment, support, and resources for their initiatives. Thereby stating a few potential problems which could be hardly encountered by the innovation tool – service blueprint. The respective limitations may rank as a decider considering a project to be a success or a failure.

• Finding relevant associates and expectations management

Considering communications management as the concept, finding relevant stakeholders, and forming an alliance is an integral part of the process. While carefully implementing the service blueprint model, the manager seems to miss the identification of these specific allies. It is prominent to establish a core team of allies that shall support the initiative and campaign the process, from start to the end of a lifecycle. The initial step of service blueprinting is finding the support team and perform a brief expectations management with the individuals, which, if stays informed, shall ensure project outcome and closely monitor the communication.

• Aligning on practicing goals, determining process and process ownership

In order to initiate aligning goals, determining the process and its owners shall concern the involved stakeholders, a lack of a brief tutorial based on competence and influence mapping could be experienced. In such scenarios, respective resources and linked stakeholders are reluctant towards practicing the task management and understand the process, where, identifying opportunities for optimizing the mode of communication and bridging the void between cross-functional departments shall channelize the processes.

Figure 2: Effective Project communications Practice

To summarize, it can be evident that there are multiple types of projects involving distinct stakeholders. However, legitimate communications management practices are nearly impossible to draw up enough to consolidate all types of limitations in a perspective of complexity and uncertainty, yet enough relevant to a particular project. Project management standards help conclude the respective key takeaways. Planning the project, perform communications mapping involving stakeholders beforehand is supposed to be the most crucial part of the process which shall be considered and treated as an important KPI. As described in the schematic of an effective project communication plan, a few KPIs could be found relevant and responsible to drive the plan.

• Communication models & methods are one of the important factors which shall help channelize effective communication between individuals and departments.
• Practicing communication strategy by performing requirement analysis shall help manage effectively communicate, which shall help determine the productivity of each contributor to the project, considering an individual or a group of individuals.
• Expectations management is important, which shall determine the project to be success or failure, which shall be considered as another important KPI to drive efficient plan, the medium of communication and technology using the model shall help efficiently and effectively communicate within external to frontstage and backstage resources.

Only practicing any of the innovation or business tool shall not help improve existing processes, however, a project manager who shall be responsible for stakeholder management or a governing body shall make sure the outcome from the tool is being utilized and benefitting the project to drive success. If and only if the respective processes are carefully adhered to, it could be depicted that the organization shall be thriving in the market, considering communications management as the most important Key Performance Indicator.

Annotated Bibliography

Communications Management; The respective wiki article from the Wikipedia page demonstrates and outlines the basic ideology behind managing communication in general terms and not specific to any certain field or area or line of work. The extract from the article would make sense to understand the idea about managing communications in very brief.

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Fifth Edition, 2013; The book describes all relevant topics and aspects of project management from a certain point of view. Part of the book refers to the essential role of effective communications.

Essentials of Contemporary Management, McGraw-Hill Co. 2015; The respective book embarks to concisely saturate the concept of Management in total. The book focuses on providing the most recent account of changes taking place in the area of management practices while maintaining an emphasis on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations of any scale and deals with models of how to tackle the respective challenges.

Guidance on Project Management, ISO 21500:2012; Project Management concepts are studied in-depth, the plan communications sub-section of the respective ISO standard book delivers a strong hypothesis based on efficiently managing communications and effectively planning it.

Service Blueprinting Overview, W. P. Carey School of Business, 2015; Service blueprinting overview helps visualize the organizational processes in order to optimize deliverables as a user experience. The book gives a standpoint in a perspective to use the model in a customized way, apparently not only in the service industry but helps tailor-make the potential use of the model.

Service Blueprints: Definition; The respective page helps understand the definition of the primary and honorary components of the model. It helps understand the practicality and application of the model by discussing the important measures in order to pursue the model.