Communication Plan

Having a communication plan in place is an essential component for good project management. This document ensures that all stakeholders are equally informed of how, when, and why communication will happen. Communication is often a very effective way to solve problems, deal with risks, and ensure that tasks are completed on time.

Successful communication plans will identify stakeholders, the information to be communicated, and how this information will be communicated. They will leave nothing to chance. The communication plan includes:

• 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

A Communication Plan helps you keep everyone informed so that you can communicate a consistent message to your target audience.

Communications can be internal with your team, or external with your customer and 3^rd parties.

Examples of communication types and media are:

External Communications

Type	Description /Purpose	Audience	Media	Timing
Report	Weekly progress & status	Customer, PM	E-mail	Weekly
Tracking Sheet E-mails Conference Call	Open issues list tracking Team questions	Customer, PM	Excel file E-mail	Ad-hoc
Meeting	Demos	Customer, PM	Meeting	Per Milestone
Meeting Conference Call	Weekly status meeting	Customer, PM	Meeting	Weekly

Internal Communications

Type	Description /Purpose	Audience	Media	Timing
Meeting	Kickoff	Team		Start of project
Meeting	Project Closure	Team		End of project
Meeting	Technical Review	Development & Testing		Upon need
Meeting	Daily Review	Development & Testing		Daily (0.5 hour)
Meeting	Weekly Status	Team	Meeting minutes Schedule update Task list update	Weekly (1 hour)
Meeting	Ad-hoc meeting	Team/part of the team	Meeting minutes	Upon need
Meeting	Knowledge Sharing (problems/suggestions/enhancements)	Team/part of the team	Knowledgebase update	Upon need
E-mails	For all agreements, issues…	Team		Upon need
Verbal	For all agreements, issues…	Team	Meeting minutes Task list update Knowledgebase update	Upon need

It is always helpful to send meeting requests with agendas prior to meetings and to document the minutes of meeting and send them to the attendees after the meeting.