Communicating change

Download a printable version of this tutorial in PDF format.

Based on research from the 2005 Best Practices in Change Management study, we found many teams used quality handouts as a way to provide change management resources for their organization.  We will now provide our weekly tutorials in a downloadable PDF format so you are able to view and print them as resources.  Depending on the topic of the tutorial, you might choose to provide it as a handout with your team, business leaders or employees. 

We will also continue to provide the tutorials in html format as found below.

Effective communication in top three

Prosci and the Change Management Learning Center are proud to present this tutorial focused on communications.  It is important to understand that change management does NOT equal communications, but communications are an integral part of a successful change management plan. 

Note:  The 2005 Change Management Best Practice Report will be finalized and available in May 2005.

Creating your communications plan

The process of developing your communications plan requires significant work from your change management team (very large projects may even have a sub-team dedicated to communication). You will be combining project information and your findings from the change characteristics and the organizational attributes assessments. The output is a set of actionable items for your team and others in the organization.  Details on the change characteristics and the organizational attributes assessments can be found in the Change Management Toolkit (hardcopy) or Change Management Pilot (online version).

The communications plan is required to create a roadmap of the required communications including senders, key messages, timing and delivery channels.

The process for developing your communication plan is:

1. Identify the audiences.
2. Identify key messages and timing.
3. Determine content packaging, delivery method, frequency and sender.
4. Prepare and present your communications plan to the project team, primary sponsor and business leaders who are needed to support the change.

The output of your communication plan will be a table like the one below for each of your targeted populations.

Note that a separate table is prepared for each targeted audience. The messages are organized by their timing in the project, and each phase has specific key messages. The messages are assigned a delivery mechanism and a sender that effectively convey that particular message. The communication activity will occur at a specific date and time to ensure that the right messages are received at the right time in the project.
 

2005 change management best practice data

The frequency and mode to communicate change in organizations varies but the resounding message learned from participants was that the majority had a comprehensive communication plan to roll out the message pertaining to change within their organizations.  The methods most frequently cited were:

• E-mail
• Group meetings (cascading message delivered throughout the organization)
• One-on-one communication
• Company publications (i.e. newsletters and magazines)
• Intranet
• High level and executive storytelling delivered company-wide

The two most effective communications methods (delivery mechanisms), according to the 2005 Change Management Best Practice Report, were:

• One-on-one or face-to-face discussions that are honest and straight forward and that offer details of the change one a personal level.

"People in the organization focused much more on personal interactions than reading information."

• Cascading small group meetings to share information, brainstorm solutions and implement new processes.

"We provided all managers with the same tools and messages so that managers across the system delivered a common message."

Remember, participants stated that effective communications was the third most important contributor to success. This tutorial provided a process for systematically developing your communications plan and shared some of the most effective delivery methods identified by study participants. The new best practices study will include additional benchmarking data regarding communications - including essential messages to communicate, key senders of messages and what teams would do differently. For a complete communications plan template, see the Change Management Toolkit or online Change Management Pilot.  

Summary

As a project team or change management team, your efforts in building a communications plan are important, but your efforts are equally as important to build the plans that go along with the communications plan.  Change management does not equal communications only.  To be effective in your change, you need to build a communications plan along with a sponsor roadmap, coaching plan, training plan and resistance management plan.  For a complete set of descriptions, templates, checklists and worksheets on each of the above plans please see the Change Management Toolkit (hardcopy) or Change Management Pilot (online version).