What is a Communication Plan? : A Communication Plan (or Communications Plan) describes how you intend to communicate the right messages to the right people at the right time. Within a Communication Plan, the communication goals, stakeholders and strategies, activities and timeframes are described. A Communication Plan helps you keep everyone informed so that you can communicate a consistent message to your target audience.
It will also help you create a schedule of communications events to ensure that your stakeholders are always kept properly informed, ensuring their continued buy-in and support.
When to use a Communication Plan?
Whenever you have a variety of staff, external suppliers, customers and stakeholders to communicate with, then you should record your communications formally in a Communication Plan. A clear Communications Plan is vital to the success of an organization. It is also critical to the success of projects, as it ensures that all of the staff and stakeholders are kept properly informed of the progress of a project. The best time to perform Communication Planning is during the start up phase of a project. This will ensure your Communication Plan includes the tasks needed to communicate effectively throughout the entire project life cycle.
You can build your Communication Plan by:
It will also help you create a schedule of communications events to ensure that your stakeholders are always kept properly informed, ensuring their continued buy-in and support.
When to use a Communication Plan?
Whenever you have a variety of staff, external suppliers, customers and stakeholders to communicate with, then you should record your communications formally in a Communication Plan. A clear Communications Plan is vital to the success of an organization. It is also critical to the success of projects, as it ensures that all of the staff and stakeholders are kept properly informed of the progress of a project. The best time to perform Communication Planning is during the start up phase of a project. This will ensure your Communication Plan includes the tasks needed to communicate effectively throughout the entire project life cycle.
You can build your Communication Plan by:
- Listing your communications stakeholders
- Defining each stakeholders communication needs
- Identifying the required communications events
- Determining the method and frequency of each event
- Allocating resource to communications events
- Building a communication event schedule
You can then use this Communication Plan for :
- Monitoring the communications events completed
- Gaining feedback on communications events
- Improving communications processes
