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IR105-2 — Communications Project Assessment Tool (Compass), User’s Guide
Introduction:
Compass... What Is It?
Compass (Communication Project Assessment) is a diagnostic tool for the assessment of a project team’s communications effectiveness. The tool was developed as part of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) research into the potential for enhanced project success through improvements in project team communications.
Compass has been designed for use by the project manager during the design and construction phases of an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) project. The tool targets three distinct groups in the assessment process: project management, engineering, and construction, and will be most effective when all three groups are represented on the project. Compass can provide useful communication assessments, however, when only one or two of the groups are present.
What Does It Do?
Compass is a multi-functional tool capable of collecting survey data, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. It is distributed as two modules on five disks: one for data collection and the other for communications assessment and reporting. The data collection module, an automated survey questionnaire, should be copied and distributed to project team members to collect data for the communications assessment. The assessment and reporting module should be installed on the project manager’s computer or the person responsible for performing the communications assessment. This module consolidates completed survey data from the team member disks, performs the assessment, and reports on the results. The assessment includes an overall communications effectiveness score, six category scores to assist in locating communications problems, and benchmarks for comparison with 72 CII projects providing the data for development of the tool.
A trend analysis feature is included, permitting comparison of scores from multiple assessments over a period of time. For further investigation of communication strengths and weaknesses, a listing of all questionnaire responses is provided, including verbatim responses not included in the computation of the communications score.
It is recommended that Compass be used early in the project, soon after assembly of the project team, for an initial or baseline assessment. Reassessments should be conducted periodically throughout the project to evaluate the effectiveness of policies and procedures established to remedy communications problems identified.
To increase the tool’s usability, comprehensive and abbreviated versions of the survey questionnaires are provided on the data collection disk. The comprehensive version should be used for the initial assessment and may be used for periodic reassessment if desired. In addition to the questions used to calculate the communications effectiveness score, this version collects open-ended (write-in) responses providing added insight into possible communications problems. The abbreviated version is a shortened version of the comprehensive questionnaire which primarily contains those questions necessary to calculate communications effectiveness scores.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Hardware and Software Requirements
3. Software Installation
4. Running Compass
5. Improving Your Communications Score
6. Working with Multiple Projects
7. References
Appendix A: Sample Survey Questionnaire
Appendix B: CII Database Project Profile Summary
