Communication Plan and Management in Change Project
Raito, Katriina (2010)
Laurea-ammattikorkeakoulu
2010
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201003316057
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201003316057
Tiivistelmä
This thesis case study describes how a communication plan is made for a change project which has an effect on more than a hundred employees. The project for which I did a communication plan and management was about a company’s IT process and process-related project. The purpose of the project was to develop the current as-is process and process tools so they would be based on a global process framework.
In the first part of this thesis report I have introduced a few communication theories and after those there is a theory part of change communication. As the world’s financial situation is poor at the moment I had to take this into consideration when planning communication for change project. This report also contains theoretical instructions on how to make a communication plan for the project.
In the first phase of the project part of this thesis I will present how I planned and managed change communication in practice step by step. The first phase in the communication plan was to make a comprehensive analysis of the project’s stakeholder groups; stakeholders included individual persons as well as groups who were needed for the implementation of the project and who were also going to be affected by the on-coming change. In the second phase I defined key messages about the project that were wanted to be shared with the stakeholders. When key messages had been defined and documented I sent them for a legal and HR check. As the key messages were checked by a legal and HR contact person of the project I started defining communication channels for the project communication.
First I went through the company’s already existing communication channels and made an analysis of them. When the analysis was made, I made a decision together with the project leader about what communication channels we are going to be used for the project’s communication. When project stakeholder analyses, key messages and communication channels had been gone through, communication was started. We used several communication channels to make sure the information reached all stakeholders. Information sessions were planned for each stakeholder group separately, and the communication material was made to fit each stakeholder’s information needs. The project decided to use one of the already existing internal newsletters for monthly communication when in order to reach a large stakeholder group by using one communication channel. Detailed and more specific newsletters were sent from the project’s resource mailbox, which worked also as an interactive communication channel between the project team and stake-holders. The project was also communicated by using the company’s intranet, and we organized information sessions for stakeholders.
In the first part of this thesis report I have introduced a few communication theories and after those there is a theory part of change communication. As the world’s financial situation is poor at the moment I had to take this into consideration when planning communication for change project. This report also contains theoretical instructions on how to make a communication plan for the project.
In the first phase of the project part of this thesis I will present how I planned and managed change communication in practice step by step. The first phase in the communication plan was to make a comprehensive analysis of the project’s stakeholder groups; stakeholders included individual persons as well as groups who were needed for the implementation of the project and who were also going to be affected by the on-coming change. In the second phase I defined key messages about the project that were wanted to be shared with the stakeholders. When key messages had been defined and documented I sent them for a legal and HR check. As the key messages were checked by a legal and HR contact person of the project I started defining communication channels for the project communication.
First I went through the company’s already existing communication channels and made an analysis of them. When the analysis was made, I made a decision together with the project leader about what communication channels we are going to be used for the project’s communication. When project stakeholder analyses, key messages and communication channels had been gone through, communication was started. We used several communication channels to make sure the information reached all stakeholders. Information sessions were planned for each stakeholder group separately, and the communication material was made to fit each stakeholder’s information needs. The project decided to use one of the already existing internal newsletters for monthly communication when in order to reach a large stakeholder group by using one communication channel. Detailed and more specific newsletters were sent from the project’s resource mailbox, which worked also as an interactive communication channel between the project team and stake-holders. The project was also communicated by using the company’s intranet, and we organized information sessions for stakeholders.