What is a Communications Plan?
One of the sections under "Planning" as you enter a change into Fresh Serve is "Communications Plan". This is where you plan who needs to be informed about your change, how they will be informed, when and by whom. It is a vital part and will be considered carefully by the approver.
Why have one?
The more we clearly communicate about a change the happier our customers of all types will be. Things you might be communicating about will be:
- Why the change is occurring?
- Details of any outage and/or period at risk
- Things the end user might notice different
- Letting colleagues know what they need to do or not do to prepare for the change or as a result of the change.
It is about improving the customer experience and ensuring the change occurs without incident
What do I need to include?
- Who needs to be communicated with and why? What is the message these individuals will expect/need to know?
- Equally who doesn’t need to know and why? Not every change is relevant to everyone.
- Then for each group of stakeholders who must be communicated with:
- How they will be communicated with (see below)
- When
- Who will do the communication?
- Comms requirements during the change/following? E.g. removing notifications; notifications letting people know it is done; who will issue coms if the change overruns.
Remember that the Communications Plan might start well in advance of the actual change and go on after the change has been completed.