A Communication Plan People Actually Follow: The Mistakes Teams Make and How to Avoid Them
A project communication plan is a document that defines what information will be communicated, to whom, by whom, how often, and in what format. In principle, it is one of the most practical tools in the project manager's toolkit. In practice, most communication plans are too generic to be useful, are not maintained after the project starts, and do not reflect how stakeholders actually want to receive information.
In 2022, with many project teams operating in hybrid and remote environments, the stakes of poor project communication are higher than in a co-located environment where informal information sharing fills the gaps. Here are the common mistakes -- and how to avoid them.
Mistakes in Building the Plan
Mistake: The plan is built without asking stakeholders how they want to receive information. A communication plan built by the project manager alone, without input from the people who will receive communications, is likely to produce the format and frequency that the project manager finds convenient, not the format and frequency that stakeholders find useful. Ask your key stakeholders: what do you need to know? How often? In what format? This conversation takes 10 minutes per stakeholder and dramatically improves the relevance of your communications.
Mistake: The plan lists communication outputs but not the communication purpose. Saying "monthly status report to steering committee" does not capture what the steering committee needs to understand from that report, what decisions they are expected to make as a result, or what a good status report for this particular steering committee looks like. A communication plan that captures purpose, not just output, produces better outputs.
Mistake: All stakeholders get the same communication. A frontline implementation team, a project sponsor, a regulatory stakeholder, and an external funding agency have different information needs, different levels of detail they can absorb, and different preferred formats. A communication plan that sends the same update to all of them optimises for efficiency and underserves everyone.
Mistakes in Running the Plan
Mistake: The communication plan is treated as a one-time deliverable, not a live document. Projects change. Stakeholders change. The communication plan should be reviewed at each project phase gate and updated to reflect the current stakeholder landscape and the information needs of the current project phase.
Mistake: Status communications report activity, not progress. A status report that says "the team has completed the detailed design phase and is transitioning to the procurement phase" reports activity. A status report that says "we are two weeks ahead of schedule on the detailed design milestone; the procurement phase is at higher risk than planned because three of the five intended suppliers have indicated they cannot meet the required timeline" reports progress and risk. Stakeholders need the latter.
Mistake: In 2022, the plan does not account for the hybrid meeting environment. If some team members and stakeholders are in-person and others are remote, the communication plan needs to specify how decisions made in hybrid meetings are documented and communicated to those who were not present. Informal hallway decisions that are never recorded create information asymmetry that undermines trust.
XNM provides project management advisory services to public-sector and capital-project clients, including stakeholder communication strategy and management. Reach out to XNM's program & project delivery advisory team to discuss communication planning and stakeholder management for your project.