1. MODERN TOOLS OF COMMUNICATION
FOR INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
Svitlana O. Volkova, PhD. student
svitlana.volkova@gmail.com sveter11@yandex.ru

2. Petro Mohyla Mykolayiv
State University
in consortium
with “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”
Medical Equipment and Systems Department

3. The First Academic Investigation –
Scientific-and-Practical Conferences
2007
• International Scientific-and-Practical Conference “Olvian Forum 2007: Strategy of Ukraine in
Geopolitical Space”, 06.09.2007 - 06.09.2007., Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Synthesis of Structured Software for Automated Knowledge Testing”.
2006
• Scientific-and-Technical Conference of Students, Post-graduates, Young Scientists with
International Participation “Informational-Controlling Systems and Complexes”, 04.10.2006 –
04.11.2006., Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Present Days and Problems of Student’s Computer Testing”.
2005
• Guidance Conference “Mogylianski Chitania”, 10.31.2005 – 11.06.2005, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Main Functions of Software for Computer Testing of Student’s Knowledge”.
• Science Days in National Petro Mohyla University, 01.24.2005 – 01.28.2005, Kiev, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Presents Day and Problems of Student’s Computer Testing”.
2004
• Guidance Conference “Mogylianski Chitania”, 10.23.2004 - 10.26.2004, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Problems of Automatic Student’s Testing”.
• International Scientific-and-Practical Conference “Higher education perspectives:
The Role of Inter-University Consortia”, 09.30.2004 - 10.02.2004, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Presents Day and Problems of Automatic Student’s Testing”.

4. Publications in Scientific Journals
& Materials of Conferences
Materials of Conferences:
2007
• Kondratenko Y.P., Encheva S., Volkova S.O., Olijnik A.I., Sapozhnik Y.V. “Synthesis of
Structured Software for Automated Knowledge Testing”, Materials of International
Scientific-and-Practical Conference “Olvian Forum 2007: Strategy of Ukraine in
Geopolitical Space”, 2007, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine – pp.78-79.
2006
• Volkova S.O., Kondratenko Y.P. “Present Days and Problems of Student’s Computer
Testing”, Materials of Scientific-and-Technical Conference of Students, Post-graduates,
Young Scientists with International Participation “Informational-Controlling Systems and
Complexes”, 2006, Mykolaiv, Ukraine – pp. 1-8.
Publications in Scientific Journals:
2007
• Volkova S.O. “Kondratenko Y.P., Encheva S., Olijnik A.I., Sapozhnik Y.V. “Synthesis of
Structured Software for Automated Knowledge Testing”, Scientific and Methodical Journal
“Scientific Works” (Naukovi Pratci), Petro Mohyla Mykolaiv State Humanities University,
2007, Mykolaiv, Ukraine – pp.183-194.
2006
• Volkova S.O., Kondratenko Y.P. “Software for Automatic Testing of Student’s Knowledge”,
Scientific Journal “Technical news”, 2006, Lviv, Ukraine, №1(22), 2(23) – pp 32-36.

6. The Main Current Investigation
The Algorithmical and Programming Tools
for Increasing Medical Software
Quality, Reliability and Safety.

7. Publications in Main Research Field
1. Publications in Conferences Collected Papers:
• 10 + 1 Internet-based.
2. Conference’s Presentations and Reports:
• 12 + 1 Internet Conference.
3. Publications in Ukrainian Scientific Journal:
• 5 + 1 in Russia, Saint Petersburg.

8. The Collaborative Work with
Professor from Washington University
• Professor, Department of Earth and
Planetary Sciences, Washington
University, Saint Louis, Missouri
• William Hayden Smith
• Cooperative Project has been done
under U.S. Civilian Research and
Development Foundation .
• Title of Project:
• Development of Software for
Process Control

9. The Most Recent Conference Presentations
with International Collaboration
• International Scientific-and-Practical Conference “Olvian Forum 2008: Strategy of Ukraine
in Geopolitical Space”, 05.06.2008 – 08.06.2008, Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Software development for endoscopic investigation: problems and basic
approaches” (U. Gorbenko, W. Smith, O. Trunov, S. Volkova).
• XXIX International Scientific-and-Practical Conference “The Application of Lasers in
Medicine and Biology”, 05.21.2008 – 05.24.2008, Kharkiv, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Sensor-and-informational Systems for Rehabilitation Procedures” (U.
Gorbenko, W. Smith, O. Trunov, S. Volkova)
• 19th All-Russian Scientific-and-Technological Conference with International Participation
“Extreme Robotics”, 08.04.2008 - 09.04.2008., Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
• Presentation “Medical Systems: Quality and Safety in Robotic Surgery” (O. Trunov, S.
Volkova).
• Internet-Conference «Perspective innovations in Science, Education Manufacture and
Transport '2007», 01.06.2007 - 15.06.2007, Odessa, Ukraine
• Presentation “Basic approaches to development of diagnostic systems: requirement
statement phase” (S. Volkova).

11. The Main Spheres for Application of Effective
Communication Tools
1. Distant Education
2. Scientific Projects
The most wide-spread computer tools for effective communication:
• The E-Mail (with web-access – Yahoo, Gmail or local –
Outlook Express etc.);
• The ftp:// resource storage with shared access;
• The Instant Messengers for interactive discussions
(ICQ, Yahoo, Skype – for video and audio conferences)
• Special Equipment (Web-Camera etc.).

12. MODERN TOOLS OF COMMUNICATION
FOR IT-PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS:
PRACTICE OF ADAPTATION

13. Agenda
• Problem Statement
• Organization of Communication
• Necessity of Applying Communications
• Communication Channels an Phases
• Communication Planning
• Communications Matrix
• Relational Model of Project Communications
• Communications Tools
• Phone Communication
• E-mail Communication
• On-line Communication
• Messengers Review & Comparison
• ICQ, QIP
• Skype
• Yahoo/MSN Messengers
• The Effectiveness of Communications
• Conclusions and Useful Links

14. Problem Statement
• Today’s leading companies in the field of information technologies
starting their branches in regions. They are specialized in software
development and testing, technical support of software products and
information consulting.
• It is mainly explained by the less cost of labor in regions, than in
large towns, and supplying of regions by graduated students with
higher education with the high level of preparation in the field of
information technologies.

15. Problems of Communications
• The main reasons that decrease effectiveness of the work of such
virtual, territorial distributed project teams are:
• The geographical remoteness among participants;
• The divergence of time zones;
• The linguistic and social-cultural factors.
• Problems in providing the effective communications and firmness in
the inner conflicts in IT projects together with inadequacy of project
information are three from six major reasons of project failures.
• That’s why the actual tasks are:
• The synthesis of communication model for IT-project’s
management in accordance to modern business relationships;
• The search of all pros and cons of this situational relations.

16. The Simple Example
Software Life Cycle
Bugs
Non Functional Requirements Testers
Use Case Tasks
Business- Developers
Analyst Project
Changes
manager
The Necessity of Effective Faults
Communications among all
Project Participants
User

17. The Organization
of Communications

18. Communications Management
The Project Management Institute (PMI) identifies nine
knowledge areas in The Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK):
• Project Integration Management
• Project Scope Management
• Project Time Management
• Project Cost Management
• Project Quality Management
• Project Human Resource Management
• Project Communications Management
• Project Risk Management
• Project Procurement Management

20. Project Communications
• Project Communication Management includes the processes which
require to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection,
distribution, storage, retrieval and ultimate disposition of project
information.
• The Project Communications Management processes provide the
critical links among people and information that are necessary for
successful
Communications. (PMBOK Third Edition, p. 340)
Phase Project Initiation:
• Project Communication includes: 1 Develop Communications Plan
• Communications Planning Phase Project Planning:
• Information Distribution 2 Refine Communications Plan
• Performance Reporting
Phase Project Execution & Control:
3 Execute Communications Plan
Phase Project Closeout: Solicit
4 Feedback
Communications by Phase

21. Necessity of Applying Communications
• IT responsibilities are not
consistent;
• IT relationships with application
users are not always
consistent;
• The implementation of systems
at the local level may require
political approval prior to use;
• The financial issues may require
significant time;
• The change management can
be complex etc.

22. Communication Channels
Upward channel
Communicate to senior
executives;
Highlights issues, risks and
exceptions;
Tools used: exception reports,
Lateral channel
weekly status reports, project
charter, e-mail updates, Communicate to clients,
communication plan, face-to- vendors and functional
face reviews; managers;
Strengthens the buy-in from Involve negotiations for
top. resources, time allocations
and budgets;
Provide directions to project Tools used: communication
team; plan, statement of work,
Highlights tasks pending, contracts, e-mail;
scheduled tasks, dates and Requires diplomacy and
general team briefings; tact,
Tools used: verbal exchanges,
agendas, minutes, e-mail,
project brief, project plan,
issue logs;
Requires delegation skills.
Downward channel

24. Communications Planning
• Who? Who needs to know?
• What? What do they need to know?
• When? How frequently?
• Where? Where are communications required?
• Why? Why is it important?
• How? How are they kept informed?

25. What? Who?
• Tendency to send too much • Did you think of everyone?
to too many -
very easy to do with • If you are designing an
electronic application in this project, have
communications! Too much you included the end-users in
is as bad as too the early project
little - can't read communications?
everything.
• If your end-user works for
• Target your audiences - another organization have you
and realize you may also kept the IT people in
have more than one. those entities informed?

26. When? Why?
• How often? • Curiosity? Good/bad?
• Morning & afternoon? • Need to know?
• Day of week?
• Day of month? • Provide information
• Different intervals for various • Prepare end-users for transition
teams
• Weekly for team members • Many reasons to share
• Bi-weekly for Middleman information
• Monthly for Executives

27. Where? How?
• Location for status meetings • E-mails
• Location for team meetings • Status reports
• Locations for information: • Phone calls
Network drive, website, internal
or external, e-mail • Meetings
attachments, e-mail text
• Face to face, one to one
• Press release
• Others

28. Tools: Communications Matrix
Audience All, Part of Team etc.
Vehicle Conversation, Report etc.
Frequency Monthly, Scope change etc.
Medium Meeting, Hard Copy etc.
Source PM, Weakly Report etc.
Delivery by Team, PM, Customer etc.
Date delivered As needed, every month etc.
Expected Result Business impact of project etc.
Object Item Assets
Audience, Delivery by Source, Expected Result Vehicle, Medium
Frequency, Date delivery.

29. Relational Model
Project Communications

30. Communication Model’s Description
• The description of the hierarchy of connections for
participants of the project:
–> technical leaders of groups
–> leader of the project
–> middleman
–> customer.
• The wide possibilities of the sets theory allow to describe
the presented model.

31. Discussion of Communication Model
• The developed model structure demonstrates the process of organization
of the project communications for the company’s employers in the branch
with guidance of main office and directly with customers who can be on
other continent.
• The relational model for IT project communication management is
presented and it:
• shows the complete visual state of project
• Contains sequent relation among projects’ participants;
• determines the dynamic changes between the participants.
• The main task is providing the connection of project’s technical leader
(TL) who works in the company’s branch with the project leader (PM),
who is in a main office and with the customers of software product or
representatives of customers.

32. IP-Phone Organization
• By the functionality and principles of work it is possible to divide the
programs into the network pagers, IRC-chats, Web-chats and
combined programs, such as on-line intercourses which allow holding
conferences with the participants of project and communicating with
the use of IP telephony.

33. E-mail Communications
E-mail Communication Tools:
The Bat
Evolutional Mail
Etc.
Basic recommendations:
• Create the message
• Timely
• Accurate
• As defined
• Deliver the message
• Accept feedback as input

34. On-line Communications: Messengers
• Yahoo Messenger
• http://messenger.yahoo.com
• MSN Messenger
• http://messenger.msn.com/
• Mіranda
• http://mіranda-іcq.sourceforge.net
• ІRC
• http://www.mіrc.com/
• RQ
• www.rejetto.com/&RQ and others.

35. Basic Features of Messengers
• Status indicator • Support of video
communications
• Contact list (Web-camera)
• Chat • Support of usual telephone
calls (PSTN)
• Chat history (Log) • Files transmission (File)
• Integrity with others • Sending SMS (SMS)
IM-networks (Int)
• Pictures or desktop
• Conferences organization translation
• Support of secure connection
• IP-phoning (VoIP)

36. Messengers Comparison
VoIP PSTN Video SMS Log File
Yahoo Messenger + + + + +
Windows Live Messenger + + + + +
AIM Pro + + +
Skype + + + + + +
Google Talk + +
ICQ + + + + +
Gizmo + +
Apple iChat + + +
Qnext + + + +
Trillian + + + +
Gaim + +
Ineen + +
Jabber + + +
Jabbin +
AIM Triton + + + + +
Imvite + + + +
WebMessenger + + +

37. ICQ QIP
Conversations
Messages
Contact Groups
Smiles

38. Skype Find
the people
Save
your history
Hold the
conference-meeting
(video/audio)
Check your Manage your
Skype-account
contact list
Phone on
stationary phone
Send a file
Organize
a chat

39. Yahoo Messenger
Get Your Use Your
Yahoo ID Webcam

40. Miranda

41. MSN Messenger Remember!!!
You need
the registration
Contact
Status
Search
In Web

42. The Practice of Adaptation
of IT-Project Communications
• Interactive communication and data exchange for all IT-project
participants are carried out with the use of such software:
 software testing process control system (TestLink, RUP);
 reporting system about defects (Bugzilla, Trac, Mantis);
 system of testing results accounting (ProjectLocker, QADB);
 on-line communicational systems (Skype, ICQ, Yahoo);
 system of organization of correspondence (Outlook Express,
Bat etc.).

43. The Graphical Interpretation of IT-Project
Organization Communication
Database server for
saving the test
results (Mysql)
Testing
Management
System
(Testlink, Mercury)
Project Bug Tracking The Testing Report Customer,
Manager System System Client
(PM) (Bugzilla, Trac, (ProjectLocker, (Middleman)
Mantis) QADB)
On-line Communication Systems
(Skype, ICQ, Yahoo)
E-mail
(Outlook Express, The Bat)

44. The Graphical Interpretation of Communication
Influence on IT-Project
The Usability Communication Tools
40% 40%
20% 30%
10%
20%
0%
E-mail
Instant Messengers
Phone
Personal contact
Distractibility and Communications Mutual-understanding and Communications
120 Personal 120
Phone Personal
Mutual understanding, %
Distractibility, %
contact contact
100 100
80 80
60 60
Phone
Instant
40 Instant 40
Messengers
Messengers
20 20
E-mail E-mail
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Efficiency, % Efficiency, %

45. E-mail
100
80
60
40
20
Personal contact 0 Instant Messengers
Distractability
Mutual understanding
Efficiency
Phone
• The highest degree of mutual understanding can be provided by phone and
personal contact, the lowest – by e-mail.
• The e-mail is less distractible communication tool than instant messenger and
phone, but it provides the least efficiency. Personal contact, compared to e-
mail, provides the highest project efficiency, but it has also the highest degree
of distractibility of project participants.

46. Conclusions
• The presented method of creating the communications matrix proved to be
efficient for solving a problem of providing the reliable project
communications.
• The communications channels in accordance to project communication
matrix defines items, object and assets of project communications.
• Modern progressive information technologies are able to provide an effective
communications among the project team members.

47. Conclusions (Continued)
• Developed relational model:
• describes the main principles of organization continuous communication
in the process of IT-project management
• provides the economy of project’s facilities and prevents the rising
conflict situations inside project.
• As a result of using different communications the instant messengers are
determined as an alternative tool that supplies the effective IT project
communications because of the low degree of distractibility and middle
degree of mutual understanding.

48. Conferences with International Participation
IT Project Communication Investigation
2008
• Conference of Students, Post-graduates, Young Scientists with International
Participation “Innovative Processes of Economical and Social-Cultural
Development: Native and Foreign Experience”, 27.03.2008 - 28.03.2008.,
Ternopil, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Importance of On-line Communications for IT-
project Management”.
2007
• Young Scientists “The Development of Foreign-Economic Activity for Ukrainian
Enterprises in context of International Integration Process”, 10.24.2007 –
10.25.2007 // Donetsk, Ukraine
• Presentation “Modern on-line tools for international business
communication”.
• Conference of Students, Post-graduates, Young Scientists with
International Participation “Innovative Processes of Economical
Development: Native and Foreign Experience”, 26.04.2007 -
27.04.2007., Ternopil, Ukraine.
• Presentation “Modern Tools of Communication for IT-
project Management Process: Practice of Adaptation”.

49. The Conference with International Participation
in Ternopil, April 2007

50. For further information
Useful Links:
• NYS Project Management Guidebook
• www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/guidebook2/index. html
• Management's Guide to Project Success
• www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/managementguide/index.htm
• Reference The Project Management Institute (PMI) PMBOK:
• www.pmi.org
Literature:
• Project Management Body of Knowledge, 3 Ed. PM institute, 2004.
• Nickson D., Siddons S. Project Disasters & How to Survive Them, 2005
• Kerzner H. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning,
Scheduling, and Controlling, Eighth Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2003