PROJECT TEAM COMMUNICATIONS
Communication among team members is the primary challenge on projects with multiple stakeholders and is critical to successful outcomes. Respecting lines of communication is vital. The CPD project manager leads a project team of six groups formed according to function and expertise. The groups and their respective communication roles are illustrated in the Primary Communications diagram on the next page. This diagram is not an organizational chart, but rather serves as an illustration of the team’s communication responsibilities.
The Approval Group includes members of the university administration, who provide guidance, oversight, architectural design feedback, and project/budget approvals at specific milestones. Depending on project scale, the group may include oversight from the Board of Trustees and others, as illustrated in the Project Organization section.
The User Group is the primary project stakeholder and must expect to spend a significant amount of time during the design phases attending to the project, particularly the designated user group representative. Adequate participation from the user group during planning and design is essential to ensure that the project will meet the needs of the group.
The project Working Group consists of user group representatives and provides a forum for regular meetings between the CPD project manager and a larger subset of the user group beyond the User Group representative. It is also a setting that can be used to facilitate interaction between the User Group and technical groups to develop and review design criteria and documents.
The Technical Groups provide design criteria, design reviews, and construction phase support to the CPD PM. Some technical groups oversee the construction of their own systems (ITS, DSS), and many of the groups are involved in the commissioning and turnover of projects.
The Design and Construction team consists of external vendors who are retained to help the University execute its capital projects based on the criteria provided by the University stakeholders. At the inception of a project, the CPD PM will develop a RACI diagram clearly identifying the roles of each team member.
On all projects, the CPD project manager is the sole University representative empowered to provide direction to external consultants, architects, and contractors, and to filter input from technical and user groups to ensure that criteria provided to external vendors will not cause the project to exceed available funds or deviate from the project schedule.
To ensure interaction between the design and construction team, the user group, and the technical groups, meetings will be scheduled including these parties on a regular basis. During the design phase, regular design meetings should be expected to occur between the design team, users, technical group representatives, and at times larger groups of technical staff, including those who will be responsible for operating and maintaining the facility at the conclusion of a project. The meetings will be coordinated by the CPD PM, User Group Representative, and Technical Group Representatives depending on the attendees. The specific roles and responsibilities of the team members are described on the pages after the Communications Diagram. During the construction phase, the same groups are expected to visit the project site regularly and participate in issue review meetings.