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than those from other groups. Considering each group in turn is a useful way of brainstorming what information you will need to communicate to them.
One of the first steps to take when creating a Communications Plan is to perform a Situation Analysis. This is a term for researching your existing communications environment. Review the performance of all communications within your project and identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. If the opportunity exists, identify any lessons learned from past communications exercises, so that the same mistakes made in the past are not repeated here.

Now list the top three objectives that you want to achieve from your project communications. For instance, you might want to inform stakeholders of the project progress, boost management buy-in or improve your team productivity.

Then set out your communications guidelines for controlling communications within your project. For example, you may decide that:
  All messages will be distributed through pre-defined channels.
  All critical communications will be pre-approved by management.
  All communications will be tailored, based on stakeholder needs.

A communication plan should cover the following headings.
  Audience, who should receive the communication from the groups discussed above?
  Reason, why you are communicating with them, what objective. Why are they a key stakeholder.
  When to communicate, is it a weekly report, or a presentation to the board.
  Responsibility, who is responsible for preparing and scheduling the piece of communication.
  Medium, the way in which it will be delivered, such as regular broadcast emails, business, town hall or community meetings, customer clinics, a special project web site or portal, on-line chat room, conference or training courses, desk dropped paper newsletter, telephone help desk or email help desk .
  Frequency, how often it will be presented.
  Content, what it will contain. This should address the reason the audience will be interested in the project.
This highlights the need for different communications at different times in the project. The stakeholders need to be kept motivated and interested in the change project to ensure their ongoing support. A good way to understand the communications needs of each of the stakeholder groups (at different times in the project) is to regularly ask representatives from these groups some of the following:
  have they heard about the change project? (a good first question - just to make sure)
  do they understand why these changes need to happen?
  do they agree?
  do they know what is happening in the project?
  have they heard about the (great) results?
  what do they think? (very open catchall question)

Communications Matrix - finally, once you have listed the events and described them in detail, you need to identify who will manage them and who will review their effectiveness. Create a Communications Matrix which lists for each event who is accountable for the event, who will take part and who will review its success. Alternatively, the plan can be a document, to see a communications plan template, click this LINK.

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