Communication Plan: Structure, Creation and Free Template

1. Why do you need a communication plan?
2. The structure of a communication plan
3. Step by step to the perfect communication plan
4. The pros and cons of a communication plan
5. 18 Collaboration Tools that will help you implement a communication plan
6. Our tips for your communication plans

In project management, one thing is more important than anything else: Communication! Regardless of the project management method you pursue, communication is the key to success or failure of a project in most cases. This does not always mean complete failure, but often delays in the schedule, inefficient use of resources or cost surges. There is a key component in project management that can prevent such scenarios: the communication plan!

What exactly is a communication plan, how it should be structured, how you can create a communication plan yourself and which tools can help you, we will tell you in this article. And as a goodie, we have created a communication plan template for you that you can download for free, use directly and fill in Word!

Table of Contents

1. Why do you need a communication plan?

2. The structure of a communication plan

3. Step by step to the perfect communication plan

4. The pros and cons of a communication plan

5. 18 Collaboration tools that will help you implement a communication plan

6. Our tips for your communication plans

Why do you need a communication plan?

A communication plan - also called a communication matrix - will tell you who should be informed about which project updates and at what times. It is important to note exactly in the communication plan which communication channel is used when, how often certain details are communicated and who wears the hat for the respective channel. Creating a communication plan is usually the task of the project manager. It should be created at the end of project planning and presented for the first time at the kick-off meeting.

With a communication plan, you ensure that team members always choose the right communication path to request information from the right people. Without such a plan, it can happen that project participants are contacted via tools that these individuals do not use. This logically results in an information backlog due to lack of response to the request. This in turn leads to the project management being contacted. They have everything, but no time. And so the project stalls at several points. If this happens often in a project, the delays will become significantly noticeable over time. And what the consequences of that are, is probably clear to everyone: The project becomes more expensive, resources are wasted and morale goes down the drain, as communicative chaos has arisen.

A communication plan is thus a small document with a very large positive impact. Because the structure of a communication plan is quite simple and quickly made.

The structure of a communication plan

There are different approaches to building a communication plan. Which one you choose depends on what is important to you and the team. Does it depend on certain times, responsibilities or certain meetings? You should also decide in advance whether the communication plan is for a project or for everyday work processes.

In principle, however, every communication plan is built in tabular form. It is especially important to maintain clarity so that everyone can easily absorb the information. The structure of a communication plan is based on the following questions:

• What task or event is it about?
• What is the purpose of the task or event?
• Who is responsible?
• Who are the recipients of the information?
• At what time intervals is the information sent?
• Which communication channel is used?

You can see what this can look like in practice in the Word-Doc that you can download for free. We have also included an example with the communication matrix template.

Download the template for a communication plan for free now

Step by step to the perfect communication plan

To make sure you fill the communication planning template correctly, we'll show you in 7 steps how to create a communication plan. This is done in five levels: communication content, communication purpose, communicating people, channels & tools and potential for improvement.

Remember that you can also create several communication plans for a project. For example, one for the team and one for the management level and the stakeholders. In this way, you only share info with those who need it. After all, the flow of information in a project should always only go where it is supposed to go to avoid chaos.

Communication content

1. Give the meeting or the task - depending on what is to be communicated - a name.

2. In addition, it can be exciting to see what goal the meeting or task is pursuing - including a deadline.

Communication Purpose

3. This involves using bullet points to list the purposes of each task.

4. Three columns further, the interval should be specified at which communication is to take place or a meeting is to take place.

Communicating People

5. The core of the communication plan, of course, are the people involved. Therefore, senders and recipients must be specified. This way, everyone knows to whom the communication task is addressed and no unnecessary human resources are wasted in time.

Channels & Tools

6. Finally, it is decisive the channel and the tool through which communication is to take place. It's important whether the project leader expects a weekly report via e-mail or via Slack. Otherwise, sender and recipient are working at two different ends, which leads to conflicts.

Identify potential for improvement & adapt

7. Continuously adapt your communication planning. Where can you be even more efficient and where is there still stop-and-go?

How you ultimately create a communication plan is, of course, up to you, your project and your team. Everyone has their quirks and advantages. In addition, individual conditions are always a factor depending on the project or company. However, orient yourself to our template and 7 steps and adapt it to your ideas.

For large projects with many stakeholders, we also recommend creating a responsibility matrix. An overview of who generally plays which role in the tasks. A responsibility matrix greatly helps to clarify questions specifically, as everyone immediately knows who the right contact person is. This is about asynchronous communication. That is, the kind of communication that does not expect a direct response from the recipient, but reaches the right person. You can also find a responsibility matrix template in the Word file.

This is what a responsibility matrix might look like.

The pros and cons of a communication plan

Like everything in this world, a communication plan also has not only advantages. But in large quantities. We'll tell you what the advantages and disadvantages of a communication plan are.

Advantages of a communication plan

• Less software hopping – A communication plan prevents personal software preferences from being used from the start. By specifying which channels and which tools are used for communication, you prevent information from going into the void or getting into the wrong person.
• Improved collaboration – This is probably the most essential reason for a communication plan for projects. Because everyone knows how and when he or she should communicate, no time is wasted.
• More efficient work and use of resources – In addition to lack of time wasting, other resources are also better utilized. For example, budgets can be better adhered to because work breaks due to lack of information do not occur.

Disadvantages of a communication plan

• Too much information exchange – What is good on the one hand, can also backfire if it is exaggerated. If you establish too many communication rules, it can have just as negative consequences as not having a communication plan.
• Too rigid communication regulations – From the previous point can also result that too many rules make given information exchange superfluous. A lot of effort to keep a communication requirement, although the informative content from it is null. Therefore, point seven in our just mentioned step-by-step guide is extremely important: Constantly adapt the communication plan!
• Communication plan for wrong project management method – A communication plan is usually aimed at projects that are managed according to traditional methods. Agile project management methods like Scrum or Kanban use a lot of transparency according to their nature. This already creates numerous communication channels that are efficient and targeted.

18 Collaboration Tools that will help you implement a communication plan

In implementing a communication plan, you do not have to rely solely on a document created in Word or Excel. Additional help comes from Collaboration Tools. These are also very useful outside of projects; for example, you can upgrade workflows in the team with them. On OMR Reviews you can compare all Collaboration Tools and other softwares with each other to filter out the best solution for you. You will also find experience reports - in text and video form - from other users and feature overviews on OMR Reviews.

The following Collaboration Tools are suitable for implementing your communication plan:

• Slack
• monday.com
• Miro
• Confluence
• Stackfield
• Jira Service Management
• humbee
• Loom
• Conceptboard
• Collaboard
• KONNEKTOR
• desk.ly
• Teamwire
• mindmeister
• Dropbox Business
• Lucidspark
• Collato.com
• Next Matter

Our tips for your communication plans

In conclusion, we would like to give you a few tips that should provide additional support for the implementation and use of communication plans:

1. Don't use too many details and fall into perfectionism. See a communication plan as a rough overview to create structures. It does not contain countless details, which make the overview too complex and let the idea behind a communications matrix slip away in the worst case. In addition, a communication plan is constantly adapting to the project, so it does not have to be perfect at the beginning - just exist!

2. Make sure how the communication should take place, not only when, where and to whom. Specifically, the means that you specify how a message or a meeting is designed in order to insert as much information as possible in as little time or length as possible. This tip is based on the fact that every person has a different way of transmitting or consuming information. While this is normal, uniform communication must be maintained within a company or a project.

3. Work in the communication plan with a glossary or express yourselves clearly in it. It can lead to complications if others do not understand your plan or abbreviations.

4. Too many tools and channels are too much of a good thing. Use 2-3 tools and only as many communication paths as necessary. The opposite can lead to confusion.

5. Pay attention to time zones, cultural peculiarities and technical peculiarities. If you work virtually with an international team, you have to take into account a lot more with your communication plan. Our last tip is therefore the top league of communication planning.