For the Communication Plan to be effective, the participants need to be clearly identified and information targeted to each audience.
Consideration of the following items, when determining what messages need to be communicated, can help to draft a communication organisation plan for all individuals involved:
- Outlined project deliverables.
- Project dependencies.
Potential communication audiences can be identified from a wide variety of sources, including:
Team External (outside the project team but within the Organisation)
- Other project teams (with dependencies).
- Divisional Executive teams.
- Divisional Operational Officers.
- Divisional HR responsibilities.
- Divisional IT responsibilities.
- Communications and HR Division.
- Corporate Learning.
- IT Steering Committee.
- Executive Board.
- Project and Program Office.
- All employees.
External (out of the project team and outside the organisation)
- Customers / Clients.
- Suppliers
- 3rd Party Service Providers
Team internal:
- Project Review Board.
- Project Sponsor.
- Project team leaders.
- Project office.
- Project coach or advisor.
- Team members.
An example of using a project organisation chart to identify communication participants is shown below:
Communication can be one of the most resource intensive activities on a project. Therefore it is important not to waste time communicating unnecessarily. Careful consideration should be made to determine which potential communication participants are in a position to exert positive or negative influence on the project, and to adjust communication effort accordingly.