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Change Toolkit Communications Overview

Purpose

Effective communications is recognised as one of the most critical factors when making change happen inside of organisations.

The purpose of the Communications activity is to ensure that:

  • There is a standard and consistent message about the change
  • Everyone hears the same message
  • People can provide feedback to the Programme
  • People are aware of the facts and what it means to them
  • People within the organisation are moved through the cycle of communications.
  • The Communications team must work closely with all areas of the Programme, particularly the Change Management team.

Cycle of Communications

There are many ways to describe the how people move through the change acceptance process. One example is:

  • Awareness
  • Understanding
  • Acceptance
  • Involvement
  • Commitment.

Please see Communications Lifecycle for a description of each stage.

Tactics

There are only so many ways to communicate. The most common are:

  • Website
  • Email
  • Team Briefings
  • Briefing the Manager
  • Newsletters and Bulletins
  • Suggestion Schemes
  • Employee Attitude Surveys
  • Champions & Coaches
  • Roadshows & Presentations
  • Cross functional team sessions
  • Video
  • Team Forums.

Please see Communications Tactics for a description of each tactic.

The Challenge

The Communications team must take all the information from all the Programme activities and interpret the information from the perspective of the business reader. This is quite difficult as every area of the Programme team is a specialist in their discipline for the Programme. Consequently they tend to speak of the change from their perspective and their area of responsibility.

The challenge for the Communications team is to take the input from all Programme specialists and create a vision for the change that makes sense to all the people in the business.

Understanding the Programme

The Communications team need to understand all aspects of the Programme. They need:

  • Access to and time with the entire Programme team including Sponsors and Stakeholders
  • Key documents
  • All areas of the business.

There is often a tendency for the Programme team to expect the Communications team to manage the communications without a clear appreciation of what they need to provide to the Communications team.

The Communications team need to be involved in all aspects of the Programme so they can:

  • Understand what is happening within the Programme
  • Understand the vision and staging of the Programme
  • Interpret the Programme activities and vision into a business perspective
  • Communicate with the entire business
  • Capture feedback from the business
  • Ensure the Programme team action the feedback from the business.

Working with the Programme team

The Programme team should be briefed on:

  • The role of the Communications team
  • What time and information they will need to provide to the Communications team
  • What specific tactics the Programme team will need to be involved in.

It is important to work closely and effectively with the Programme team. This means the Programme team will need to invest in the Communications team to ensure the right information at the right detail level is made available to the business in the right way.