Build Your IT Communications Plan – 4 Finishing Touches

Now it’s time to put the finishing touches on your IT communication plan.  There are 4 more things you need to consider:

(1)  The desired effect of your messages

 Of course, unless you are sure what it is you are trying to accomplish with your communication, the message is likely to come out wrong and you’ll waste your time in getting it distributed.  Remember that you’re trying to get people in your internal market segments to move from Point A to Point B based on your operational performance and the messages you send about it.

This movement can take several forms:

•  You may want to transform a doubter into an advocate on your behalf.
• In a difficult situation, the more modest objective may be to make the vocal critic abstain from (or moderate) his vocal criticism of your service, or to take note that you really are making progress.
• For ‘mass market’ topics like the iPad deployment, the desired effect may be to prepare people for the roll-out, to get them excited about the innovations you are introducing, even to brag to colleagues at other companies that ‘my IS group really understands my needs’.
• In a large-scale ‘change management’ program, the objective may be to show people that momentum is building and that milestones are being met.  You can also repeat (frequently!) the business outcomes you’re trying to achieve and why they are good / important / inevitable.
• In the case of the crisis communication, the ‘movement from Point A to Point B’ could be ‘moving from panic to confidence that the situation is under control’.
• Another ‘desired effect’ for a crisis communication could be to insure that key stakeholders understand the root causes of the crisis and know what can be done to prevent future problems.

(2)  The planned date (or time period) in which the communication will be done

This is the easiest part of the plan.  It’s either ‘NOW’ (in the case of a crisis) or ‘NOT TOO EARLY BUT NOT TOO LATE’ if we’re talking about an upcoming evolution or event.  For something like the iPad introduction, you’ll want to start mentioning it as soon as you’ve reached a firm (irrevocable) decision to get it done, then progressively add more information as you get the details of who, when and how it will be done.

 (3)  Who will do it

Sometimes it’s obvious who should execute a particular action item.  Maybe your intranet webmaster will post a series of announcements at pre-defined intervals before an event.  Perhaps your Controller will write a letter to his or her internal correspondents to detail a new process you’re rolling out and give it some authority.  If it’s a major policy statement, maybe you yourself will need to make a statement in a public forum.

In at least two of the companies I’ve worked for, the impulse was always ‘We’ll have to get the CEO to send out a letter for us.’  Sometimes this is the perfect solution; if your department is leading a major change program for the company, it’s helpful for everyone in the building to hear that it has top-level support.  The CEO can bring (one hopes) some communication ‘polish’ and (one hopes fervently) some moral authority to whatever subject you need to communicate.  There’s a downside, though, to ‘getting the CEO to do it’ every time:  It’s not a good solution for most lighter, more trivial subjects.  Its one thing to get a video of the CEO saying ‘We believe in what our IT team is doing and it has my personal support’ when you’re announcing a restructuring of the technical infrastructure for the whole company.  It’s not at all the same to capture her on tape saying ‘Let’s make sure everyone turns off his PC before you go home at night to save electricity.’

Here are some other best practices on ‘who should execute’ the lines of your communications plan:

• For many situations, the best approach may be to have a short list of ‘key messages’ crafted by you and/or the members of your leadership team, then to have them cascade these messages to others.  This can either be done ‘top down’ if the message is internal to your department, or in ‘radiating’ or ‘evangelistic’ style if you need to get a message out to people across the company.  In either case, it’s helpful if the successful execution of the communication plan is made part of each person’s individual performance objectives for the year.  (And, yes, I know there will be bitching and moaning when you ask them to do this.  Time pressure is very real for almost every manager’s job, and it is hard to take on a communications task and do it well.  But as before, you and your team need to have a hard conversation about what the alternatives might be.  Is it really better for them to stay in their offices and work on budget spreadsheets when you have a major change program underway, or can they do more good for the bottom line by engaging in meetings and elevator discussions all around the company with a focus on 2 or 3 key messages for the week?)

• Depending on how centralized or concentrated the target audience for your communication is, you may need to organize a little ‘road show’ to make sure your message gets heard.  Again, yes, it is hard and time consuming, but the payback can be enormous.  (This is especially true if hardly anyone from HQ ever shows up at some of your remote sites.  You’ll find the people there can be incredibly appreciative of your effort, even if the message is a hard one – maybe especially if the message is a hard one – and you may even hear things in the Q&A sessions or the trip from the airport that you never would have heard if you did a webcast from your office.)

(4)  How you will measure the success or failure of the action

There are at least 2 elements you must measure on any significant communication:

•  Did it get done – that is, was it transmitted on-time through all the channels you expected by all the people who were supposed to do it?

• Did it achieve the desired effect – did people really move (or start to move) from Point A to Point B as a result of what you’ve done?

The first measure is simple and mechanical; it can be handled by an e-mail back to you from the person responsible for the communication saying ‘it’s done. I spoke to Mr X and Ms Y on Thursday this week, and both invited me to make a presentation on the subject at a staff meeting later this month’.  The second, though, requires some effort.  The obvious mechanism for measuring the effect is to ask the people who are supposed to be ‘moved’.  You can do this either through face-to-face discussion or through a brief e-mail questionnaire to your key stakeholders.  Here are a couple of examples:

_____________________________________

For a ‘Crisis’ Communication

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1.  When did you first learn of the crisis?
2. Through what medium?
3. Do you consider that you were adequately informed of progress during the resolution of the crisis?  (If ‘no’ – why not?)
4. Do you consider that you understand the reasons for the crisis and what will be done to keep it from recurring?  (If ‘no’ – why not?)
5. Do you have any suggestions for improving the way we communicate to you in this kind of situation?

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For a Project Like the iPad Deployment

————————————————————–

1. When did you first hear about this deployment?
2. Through what medium?
3. Do you understand why this project is needed?  (If ‘no’ – why not?)
4. Do you consider that you are adequately prepared for this deployment?  (Why or why not?)
5. How could we improve the way we communicate to you about this kind of project?

Wherever possible, these e-mails should be ‘personal’ – that is, delivered from your own e-mail account with a greeting customized to each recipient.  I would also suggest including a line with your phone number(s) and an invitation to call or set up a meeting if the stakeholder wants to discuss anything in more detail.

Doing this kind of follow-up sends a clear message to your stakeholders that you are trying to improve the way you communicate them.  If you consolidate the results and deliver them to members of your team, you’ll be sending a clear message to them, too – that communicating correctly is a priority for your organization.

In a larger ‘change management’ initiative, you can’t rely just on a quick questionnaire to insure your messages are getting through.  You’ll need to follow up each major communication milestone with a one-on-one discussion with each person you really need to have ‘on board’ for the changes you are driving.  Part of this interview will obviously focus on content and objectives – are they clear, what difficulties do they present, why might they not be accepted, etc.?  But part of the discussion should also focus on the form and frequency of communications you are using to support the change.  Do your communications come frequently enough?  Are they in the right form?  (Beware the project ‘newsletter’ that no one is actually reading!)  What would be more meaningful to your stakeholder?  How does he/she prefer to be approached?

Putting it All Together

Now you have all the elements of a good (basic) communications program – the content, the plan, the way to execute, and the way to measure the results.  I’ve been lucky enough to find people within my team with a real talent for this kind of work, but it is something you can do directly with the members of your management team.  If you do this much, and no more, I think you will see a quick return on the effort you put into your communication plan.

I’d be glad to hear from any of you who’ve gone through this effort yourself.  How did you do it?  How did it turn out?  Please share your experience in the “Comments” block below.

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