TOPIC: Confuse over Communication Plan and Stakeholder Management Plan

Hi PMPs,
I need some help to differentiate between Stakeholder Management Plan and Communication Plan.

In PMBOK page 296, Communication Management Plan contains:
- Stakeholder communication requirements
- Information to be communicated, including language, format, content, and level of detail;
- Reason for the distribution of that information
- etc....

According to PMBOK page 403, Stakeholder Management Plan provides:
- Desired and current engagement levels of key stakeholders;
- Stakeholder communication requirements for the current project phase
- Information to be distributed to stakeholders, including language, format, content, and level of detail;
- etc...

Questions:
1) Is there duplicate information in these two plans? Looks to me that Stakeholder Management Plan contains information from Communication Plan as well.
2) How do you know under what sort of situation, which plan (Stakeholder or Communication) should you refer to?

Thanks.

Annie- you have great questions and one of the principles I often advise students studying for the exam to remember the connections between Process Groups and Knowledge Area.
And by this, as it applies to your questions, will there be duplicate information, perhaps yes, perhaps no (in reality). The Exam questions want to you focus on the input, TT, and Outputs. You have to understand the frame of reference within each scenario to know if you are being asked to manage stakeholder engagement (in which case you'll look for elements from the stakeholder management plan) or are you being asked to manage communication (in which case you'll look for elements from the communications management plan. Yes it's true, the SMP and CMP are inputs to the Manage Stakeholder Engagement. That's when you have to look for nuance such as words like commitment, negotiation, clarifying and resolving. This nuance is why the exam is difficult, however, you'll find in practice exams where you might get the two areas confused, and use those mistakes to understand nuance. Once you get to the exam, you should feel comfortable in understanding what to look for.

Is this response helpful?

Thanks Michael. Yes, it is helpful and I get it

I would simply like to add that in Planning, the SMP and CMP have the exact same inputs. When they enter executing, it is then, like Michael explained, the CMP is an input to the SMP. Also, from PICC, the change log enters Mg. Stakeholder Engagement and comes out as the Issue log; an input to both Control Communications and Control Stakeholder Engagement. (and Manage Project Team) As they conclude their tango, in Monitor and Controlling, the SM and CM have the same TNT and Outputs. I view these two knowledge areas as kissing cousins. I have failed my exam twice, so please feel free to disregard this entire post. (or if PM PrepCast deem necessary, delete it) However, I have been studying a very long time. I have found these two knowledge areas to be tied at the hip. More importantly, Stakeholder Management looms so large that it was one of the big changes from PMBOK 4 to PMBOK 5th edition. (Mind you I have never read the 4th edition, but the errata are spelled out in the Appendix) It tells us that not only does PMI regard Stakeholder Management important enough to give them their own knowledge area, but they have deliberately intertwined the two (Comm. and Stakeholder). Lastly, some of the changes from January 11th put additional emphasis on Stakeholder management; (If interested, refer to Exam Content Outline: Initiating Task 7 and 8, Planning, Task 13, Executing Task 6 and 7) I've read many places that the outline is not that critical and the change (from 1/11) is negligible on the exam. Very good news!
Thank you and please forgive me if I intruded.
Debby

The most helpful distinction I read was:
- Stakeholder Management Plan – why of communication (why this stakeholder needs this information)
- Communication Management Plan – how of communication (technology, methods)
Unfortunately I can no longer remember where I found this, might have been Rita