MPEM 5160
Managerial Communication
for Project Managers
Instructor:
Henrietta Shirk
Education:
Ph.D in English; Bryn Mawr College; Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 1973
M.A. in English; Tulane University; New Orleans, Louisiana, 1963
B.A. in English with Honors; Williamette University; Salem, Oregon
Text:
Mary Munter. Guide to Managerial Communication: Effective Business Writing and Speaking. 6th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2003.
Annette M. Veech. Managerial Communication Strategies: An Applied Casebook. Upper Saddle River, NU: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Harvard ManageMentor Module: Writing for Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001. (Downloadable e-book available for $19.95 from the HBR web site Product Number 9284)
Additional readings, case studies, and materials will be posted on the course web site.
Recommended Reading List:
Paul A. Argenti & Janis Forman. The Power of Corporate Communication: Crafting the Voice and Image of Your Business. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Ralph G. Nichols (ed.) Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 1999.
General Policies and Procedures
"Managerial Communication for Project Managers" is a distance-delivered course that is highly experiential. Students will have the opportunity to discuss and read about communication concepts and to analyze cases, as well as their own workplace situations, reflecting upon project engineering and management issues. They will also have numerous opportunities to practice and improve their communications skills through written discussion responses, case studies, online presentations (via PowerPoint) and peer as well as instructor, feedback interactions.
Expectations
This distance learning course will be presented via Blackboard. Students are expected to:
- Spend about three hours per week on assignments for the course.
- Log-on to the course web site at least three times per week to participate substantially in Discussion Board and scheduled Chat sessions.
- Participate in online learning teams, as assigned by the instructor. These course activities are designed to help students work constructively in groups and to coach other class members as they would coach fellow employees at work.
- Complete individual writing assignments that represent the student's individual effort and have not been discussed with or edited by anyone else.
- Submit assignments online according to the schedule outlined in the syllabus. (Unexcused tardiness will lower grades by one letter grade for each day.)
Grading Policies
The course grade will be based on the following assignments and coursework
- 30% for written responses to seven assigned case studies
- 10% for mid-term exam
- 20% for final project (individually-authored case study)
- 10% for PowerPoint presentation on final project (with speaker's notes)
- 10% for final exam
- 20% for participation in the course (Discussion Board and Online Chat)
100% Total
See the course syllabus for further details on the above items
Description
This course gives working professionals the opportunity to improve their ability to communicate effectively as project managers. Students examine and practice the communication strategies and skills that are essential for success in project engineering management settings. The course goals are to improve understanding and ability to: (1) apply appropriate communication strategies; (2) practice managerial writing and presentation skills; and (3) understand and respond effectively to cross-cultural and corporate communication issues from within the framework of project management.
Communication skills are prerequisites for success in business. Project managers especially require effective communication skills to achieve their potential as leaders. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (published by the Project Management Institute, 2001) indicates that "Communications Management" is one of the nine major "knowledge areas" in the field of project management. Regardless of the area of their technical skills and expertise, graduates with the MPEM degree will need to know strategic approaches to managerial communication that can be applied to a variety of project management situations. This course fills and existing gap in the MPEM program by offering students an elective that will polish their skills in written and oral communication within the framework of project management. This course will assure that participants have mastered the fundamentals of wiring various forms of business communication, creating and preparing for the delivery of oral presentations, and preparing graphics, editing and using standard English.
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Assess their audiences for managerial communication and plan communication strategies accordingly.
- Research and develop effective written communication in various formats.
- Design and plan for the delivery of a professional oral presentation.
- Generate and use high-quality visuals to support written materials and oral presentations.
- Analyze communication situations by applying models and theories of organizational communication to project management issues and problems.
Objectives
This course has the following three objectives:
(1) To improve students' understanding of and ability to apply communication strategies.
The course enhances students' understanding of what makes project management communication different from other forms of communication. It also teaches students how to think strategically about communicating in a project management setting. Decisions about communication strategy have a profound effect on all aspects of communication covered in this course.
(2) To improve students' managerial writing and oral and visual presentation abilities.
As a result of participating in this course, students will learn methods for becoming more effective managerial communicators - that is, achieving management objectives, adjusting for different business audiences, deciding whether to communicate at all, writing under time pressure, increasing the "skim value" of documents when appropriate, making intelligent choices about sentence structure and word choice, using appropriate presentation structure, and using visual aids effectively.
(3) To improve students' understanding of cross-cultural and corporate communication.
The course introduces students to frameworks for analyzing cross-cultural issues and provides the opportunity to research one culture (of choice). In addition, the course teaches techniques for applying some management communication concepts to corporate (as opposed to an individual) settings - including dealing with the media and responding to crises.
Outline
The general progression of the course will be as follows:
Weeks#1 - #8: Analyses and responses to seven case studies
Week #9: Mid term exam. Draft of final project (case study) due.
Week #10: Break
Week #11: Final version of final project (case study) due.
Week #12 - #15: Responses to classmates' case studies.
Week #16: PowerPoint presentation due (with speaker's notes)
Week #17: Final Exam
Note: The specific details of this outline are posted and described on the courses schedule in the course.
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