Literature Review On Better Communications In Project Management Using Social Media

Literature Review

LITERATURE REVIEW
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this essay is to assess the need of improved communications in project management. According to most of the project manager the effective and affluent communication is essential for the success of the project, though it is expensive too. Social medial is a cost effective and wide reach source of communication. However it has its own draw backs along with the advantages and convenience it provides. In the main body of this essay these contrasting roles and functions of Social Media will be discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Project management involves the effective use of tools and techniques in collaboration with the skills and knowledge (Ollus et al., 2011). These activities are aimed at achieving the organizational goal successfully and to meet the requirements of the project precisely. Along with many other components impacting success of project management, like people in and outside the organization, development of the product, marketing of the product and strategic Planning, Communication is an important component of project management. It is important to communicate the essentials to and among the employees.
Social media being an effective communication tools uses the web-based technologies and mobiles to make profoundly instinctive junction through which people and groups offer and talk about content that is generated by common and specialized users (Baruah, 2012).  However, social media is also becoming clustered and people ignore the less attractive items, thus to take advantage of social media lots of efforts are to be made.
According to Kietzmann et al (2011), Long range interpersonal communication tools including the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs and featured e-mails, additionally help uncover the hidden knowledge that is difficult to be gained through typical discussions and email. Also, when the information obtained is surface, it has a tendency to stay surfaced and not vanish when colleagues and employees proceed onward to next assignment.

Social networking instruments are quick turning into a universal piece of project management handbook. Social networking is no more about just updating the Facebook status or to Tweet the occasion.
As indicated by Levitt (2011), most of the managers in the field of the project management are of the view that social networking is a key issue for their industry. Hence, increased attention should be paid to this issue in order to improve the overall project management.
According to Leonardi & Meyer (2015), social coordinated efforts and related tools lead to high performing undertaking groups and associations from various perspectives, for instance:

They build attention to accomplishments

They accelerate data and sharing of knowledge
They track accomplished data
They are involved in building trust by making work advance and status more straightforward
Transparent correspondence
Improve Project Team Communications with Social Media
According to Majchrzak et al (2013), correspondence is viewed as a standout amongst the most critical device in the organizations today. There are many aspects in a business that need to be communicated inside the organizations and many are to be communicated outside.
There are a lot communication tools available out there, and they can be expensive, compel establishment and instalment, training sessions or require permit and licence. Utilization of four of the most well known social networking web sites can be successful to comprehend correspondence challenges (Majchrzak et al., 2013). These are discussed briefly underneath (Li, 2012):

Use of Twitter

While email may be an alternative, numerous individuals do not have alarms that start ringing each time a message comes in. On the other hand, message over-burden causes vital ones to get lost among the less vital mails. In relatively same manner the teams are so beneficial when they are as one in the same room, Twitter-like interchanges can serve the requirement for snappy, important data imparting among the group and team members.

Use of Yammer or Facebook

These Social web sites would be used in building community. To be effective, team colleagues must find out about one another, which involve way of working, qualities and shortcomings of plans and decisions. For serving this purpose there is unique space of the Facebook timetable where companions and associates can get knowledge into one another's human side.
Yammer, a social cooperation instrument and Facebook's kin in the corporate world, gives a comparable space to Facebook's media visualization of the advancement of time, however it has a limitation that it constrains its clients to the organization.

Use of Wiki

Wiki would be used to create shared team notebook. A wiki is a space where individuals can include, adjust and erase substance utilizing straightforward mark-up languages. One of the additionally convincing highlights of a wiki is that its structure and substance changes and develops gradually as it is utilized.

Use of Vimeo, YouTube & Podcasts

Vimeo, YouTube & Podcasts are used to communicate, educate & engage its users. Studies demonstrate that more individuals incline toward feature and videos to content while getting certain sorts of data. Feature can likewise make to a greater degree an individual association, which is constantly helpful for appropriated groups.

LACKING POINTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATION

When used as a basic communication tool Social Media, reveals some constraints. Some major constraints are listed below:
Missing the Target Audience
The intended interest group is sometimes not available on online networking. In this condition there is no point of investing a ton of time setting up a task blog or conveying Tweets if there's no one tuning in. Then again, organization can in any case use social specialized strategies to verify that it being backed-up by its clients and present them gradually, focusing on the advantages (Scheepers et al., 2014).

Assuming that Social Media Communication will settle poor correspondence

If the employees are not interested in talking to each other, then they certainly would not speak to each other when company introduce a layer of social communications technology. Social media would not solve communication problems, if team members themselves do not want to share information at the moment. There is something more fundamental to fix in this case, and use of Media will not be fruitful here (Madden, 2012).

Improper mix of Social Media or too much access use

It is important to choose the appropriate medium of social media. If company uses a blend of wiki, Facebook, Twitter, blog and has already set up an email mailing list for online newsletter. Then it could create an overload that depicts that communication tactic is not doing well. Here the communication will turn out to be noise and will cause adversity (Alfaro et al., 2012).

Being less attractive

Social media is about meeting and individuality. No one wants to peruse announcements on internal micro blogging tool on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. that are framed in a way that looks as if they are computer generated. Let project team members design and update contributions themselves, regardless of the possibility that company then need to apply a light-touch altering to guarantee that what they are stating is on message.

Recommended Solutions:

According to Treem & Leonardi (2012), some of the strategies that can be used by the companies for effective use of social media in project management are as follow:
Find out what sort of correspondence the target people is now utilizing and tap into those. In the event that they aren't utilizing social networking devices right now, present them gradually with a project of preparing and training too.
If representatives prefer not to talk and offer data then organization ought to first make a society of imparting and open correspondence. At that point add innovation and communication to them.
Introduce new innovation in a deliberate, controlled manner; lot of correspondence at one time is a haste that would result in waste.
For getting to be drawing in and to get consideration websites and remarks ought to be composed in a bona fide voice, actually for status updates.

CONCLUSION

Project Communications Management's primary objective is to guarantee opportune and suitable gathering, stockpiling, dispersion and era of project data. Each project ought to incorporate a correspondence administration arrangement. Powerful correspondence is imperative in accomplishment of activities. Despite a number of the positive results acquired by Social Media Communication, there are a few focuses where it does not have impressive outcomes; these requirements must be managed accordingly. Correspondence is the tool that holds a project group together. Correspondence is not simply about talking. It is additionally tuning in and contributing. Without clear correspondence, even a little group cooperating will have real issues. On account of a virtual group, poor correspondence will render an effectively difficult circumstance almost difficult to control.

References

Alfaro, I., Bhattacharyya, S., Highlander, J., Sampath, S. M., & Watson-Manheim, M. B. (2012). Opening the Social Media Black Box-a Feature-Based Approach. In ECIS (p. 119).
Baruah, T. D. (2012). Effectiveness of Social media as a tool of communication and its potential for technology enabled connections: A micro level study. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2(5), 1-9.
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business horizons, 54(3), 241-251.
Leonardi, P. M., & Meyer, S. R. (2015). Social Media as Social Lubricant How Ambient Awareness Eases Knowledge Transfer. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(1), 10-34.
Levitt, R. E. (2011). Towards project management 2.0. Engineering Project Organization Journal, 1(3), 197-210.
Li, X. (2012). Weaving social media into a business proposal project. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(1), 68-75.
Madden, M. (2012). Privacy management on social media sites. Pew Internet Report, 1-20.
Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C., & Azad, B. (2013). The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 19(1), 38-55.
Ollus, M., Jansson, K., Karvonen, I., Uoti, M., & Riikonen, H. (2011). Supporting collaborative project management. Production Planning & Control,22(5-6), 538-553.
Scheepers, H., Scheepers, R., Stockdale, R., & Nurdin, N. (2014). The dependent variable in social media use. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 54(2), 25-34.
Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (2012). Social media use in organizations: Exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Communication yearbook, 36, 143-189.