How do you share Project Plan details with other people involved in the project both in/out of company?

There are two key components to effective communication of complex information (and the schedule is complex to most 'normal' people).

1. KISS and focused (KISS = Keep It Sweet and Simple) - and what they need to know now. But have the full information available if people want to browse. 

2. Communicate in a way that works for the receiver (there is no point in sending stuff that is not read). 

You will find an analysis of what's needed and how best to communicate clusters into groups so you can use technology to extract the useful information in batches. 

The 'push' communication (what they need to know now) should be via a one-on-one process, telephone, email, instant messaging, etc.  But the information sent is brief, concise and 'important'. 

The 'pull' aspect - everything else - can be managed via a web portal, comprehensive reports, etc., but these are available for the people to access if they choose (hence 'pull), not pushed out to them to ignore. 

For more on effective communication see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-PBK-040.php

A final thought - compare the cost of your communication effort to the project to the costs associated with people failing to understand and act on the information being communicated. And then adapt your job to include making sure the information is at least clearly understood. 

Pat. 

It depends on the software that is used.

In Spider Project it is possible to create responsibility structure and automatically send specific portions of the project and tasks planned to be done in specific periods to those who are responsible for them.

Reports are also automatically collected in accordance with responsibility structure.

But this technology is software specific.

As it may be indeed software specific, I omit to mention am currently using Oracle Primavera P6 to manage our projects.

1. Do you spend a lot of time on providing each participant in a project with information dedicated specifically to them?

Answer: blue beam is a good tool to use also a central project reporsitory works best

2. How do you handle these tasks? 

Excel appears to be one of the mosy usefull tools to dissimenat information and get info back in the same format 

3. Has anyone automated this process? 

yes we have automated this process using the API interface

4. How often is this communication happening?

Communicaiton happens at different intervals depending on the item it could be daily such as the plan of the day it could be weekly such as a weekly pull planning session or it could be monthly for a monhtly schedule update.

5. Do you have any working procedures in place that regulate this process? 

yes becasue if you do not have working procedures in place no one knows what to do and the order to do it in. 

Thanks for the helpful insights, Rafael, Joel, all.

The PrimaveraReader looks promising.

Edit; ScheduleReader™ (previously PrimaveraReader™) has been rebranded, please see http://www.planningplanet.com/advertisers/schedulereader

glad we could help 

Using Excel files like someone mentioned in the comments or using PDFs and screenshots for disseminating information, can be a very ineffective way of working.

The exchange of information is slow, and these file formats have many limitations as they only portray a static image of project data. On top of that, it clearly takes a lot of time and effort to prepare and distribute them accordingly.

Also, working with Oracle's Primavera P6, or any other software can be very hard at times if you aren't organized and you don't have proper work procedures in place. There are some P6 companion tools that can assist you with all of the above.

I would strongly encourage you to have a detailed, in-depth look at ScheduleReader.

From what I can conclude it will definitely help you organize your processes using a more structured approach. You will save a considerable amount of valuable time and ease your work.

The Progress Update feature, where your team can report back status updates on their tasks and activities answeres your questions.

If you need to take control on what data can be viewed by the recipient, as it happens frequently, then a static view might be your only option if your software and viewer cannot take control of access right when transferring files.

• The transfer file must contain the access rights to keep control on what data can be viewed by the recipient.
• This should be easy to implement, similar to accessing a file within a network.
• It is not just about what costs, if any, the recipient will be allowed to see but everything else.
• It is not unusual to hide Total Float [TF] to subcontractors and suppliers as well as to give them access to a limited set of activities. I would not show Free Float [FF] to a supplier while might show FF to a subcontractor as to provide him with some information on how to distribute his workforce without delaying the start of any activity. 
• Scheduling for Subcontractors  Page 7: Owners & GC worry about Total Float while Subcontractors really only consider Free Float. Many GCs do not even share what the project total float is for the Subcontractor. Subcontractors should look at their last activities in each chain of work, note the Free Float value, and then disperse that float throughout their chain of work.
• I cannot see much value on a reader/viewer that overrides access rights.
• 

Consider using Ghost Schedule: Ghost Schedules are employed behind the scenes on construction projects for various reasons and purposes. Contractors use them to record their original plan when owners refuse to approve early completion schedules or fail to promptly grant time extensions, as well as to manage the activities of subcontractors and suppliers to earlier finish dates than the official project schedule. Ghost Schedules are used for planned early completion schedules; as “target” schedules; to get commitment from other project participants concerning early completion; and to influence contemporaneous project decisions. Such schedules may be used to create what some refer to as a “schedule contingency”. Finally, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruling that contractors are “…not required to advise the owner of its planned early completion…” affects active scheduling and delay analysis and often gives rise to the use of Ghost Schedules by contractors.