Project Communications Calendar

 Projects are busy places. Stakeholders may experience a deluge of communications early in the project then wonder at the silence when the project gets busy and no one has time to communicate.

 Stakeholders are critical to success. Keeping them informed and engaged is simply not an option – project communications are a core project activity. They need to be strategic, organised and consistently delivered no matter how busy the project team is. A “machine” needs to be built to deliver the right information to stakeholders at the required frequency, in the right format and with the appropriate tone by owners.

This machine is called a communications calendar and is a tool used by major publishers to ensure they plan and drive out regular publications.

A great example from Forbes magazine is provided below - one full year’s planned issues are laid out along with closure dates for advertising and launch dates for each issue.

Strategic communications calendars are used widely to plan content and engagement through many different modes.

Like editorial calendars, this is done months and years in advance to allow for planning and collaboration with partners.

The next example is more likely to resemble your project communications calendar. Look for the following in the quarterly calendar on the next page.

1.    Annual events and immovable dates such as holidays and are scheduled in first

2.    Board meetings are scheduled next since these are set for the year

3.    Recurring quarterly and monthly events such as CEO updates, Town Hall events and regular newsletters are scheduled next

4.    Weekly events including reports, updates and regular meetings go in

 Daily events such as a 10-minute project stand-up meeting every morning may not need to go into the calendar since this is part of the daily routine.

Source: Mansfield IS Dept

Project Communications Calendar

 Tor has asked you to put together a Project Communications Calendar for Project SOS from next month. Refer back to the Stakeholder Communications Plan that you completed with Missa’s help in Case Study 6.3. Tor’s instructions are to build a plan for the next quarter based on the following:

1.    Board meetings are held on the second Friday of each month

2.    The monthly management meeting is held on the Monday of the same week

3.    ASIC has asked Robert for a report by the end of each month

4.    Jon holds a “Town Hall” meeting for all employees each month. It's normally held on the first Tuesday following the Board meeting and includes a morning tea

5.   Jon also has a shareholder presentation once per quarter on the first Wednesday of the month. This happens to be the month that it is on

6.   Other regular communications to be scheduled in are – a daily communication at 4pm each day and weekly communications, ready for distribution by 12pm on Thursday mornings

 Complete the project communications calendar in the tab CS6.4 Comms Calendar and then review this against Missa’s version in CS6.4a. If you are already proficient with diary management this should only take a few minutes!