Written by tj | Posted in Business |

Communications Strategy Template

Many companies use a standard communications strategy template for improving communications. These are often used for reporting project updates in between teams and senior management levels.

The basic structure for a template can help in improving communication in the workplace if effectively used. The same structure can be applied for external reports, although you do have to be careful about what company sensitive data is being included. The key sections are:

1. Objectives. You should clearly define the goals of your project team. For external reports this will convert into company objectives. Internal teams are often aware of the key goals tasks of each project so is worth including.
2. Progress summaries & outlook. You can provide a general overview of the status of your teams work activities. A short-term outlook at upcoming tasks and milestones can also be included.
3. Budgetary progress. You will need to give updates on whether or not your team are on budget. Senior management will be keenly interested in this area.
4. Milestones. Provide information regarding key work activities and milestones that were achieved over the previous reporting time period. It should include details of which milestones were hit, deferred, missed or altered.
5. Issues & risks. This section allows you to highlight key risks and issues you have identified that need the attention of management. They are raised here in your communications strategy template for management to make effective decisions on (i.e. they need to be acted upon or removed/mitigated against).
6. Project plan changes. All projects change due to customer support issues, offer some circumstances, etc. If your plans change then your communications template needs to include these details for dependent teams to be made aware of.

Always keep your basic communication strategy template structure concise and simple. Use charts wherever possible to summarize data. Appendices can be used if you need to go into in-depth detail (e.g. about budget progress).

Popularity: 1%