Originally published July 14, 2022. Updated June 17, 2024.
Picture this:
Cool Creatives is your quintessential creative agency. They have account managers, project managers, copywriters, designers, and developers.
As with every agency, there are projects to get on with, meetings to be held, budgets to be defined, and targets to be met.
Cool Creatives has some incredible talent on its team. They’ve got a big problem on their hands though, namely, terrible communication.
On a typical day, Ron, the account manager, will need to discuss the latest client requests with Lily, the project manager. Often, though, Ron finds that Lily’s schedule is packed for the day, and the discussion will have to be put off until tomorrow, much to the client’s discontent.
Lily, in turn, is having difficulty staying on top of all the creatives on the team. There’s the new website project everyone’s meant to work on, but there are also some loose ends to tie together on an old ad series. Lily hasn’t a clue which team members are working on what. She also doesn’t have a way to track whether they are behind, ahead, under budget, or way over.
As for the creative team, Dave, the copywriter, is considering leaving the agency altogether in pursuit of more challenging work. The managers at Cool Creatives often seem to forget that he is a copywriter by profession, not a salesperson, not a project coordinator, and not an SEO specialist, either.
Anne, the designer, doesn’t know what to tell her manager when he asks her how many hours she worked this month, in addition to a breakdown of how much time she spent on what. Anne had tried to keep track of her hours on a spreadsheet, but that didn’t include all the time she had spent in meetings (meetings at Cool Creatives didn’t usually amount to much, by the way. They usually went in circles and ended up discussing things that had never been on the agenda) or that day she had spent helping set up the new computer system.
On top of all that, no one at Cool Creatives is ever sure how to contact anyone else. Should they pick up the phone? Walk across the office? Send a quick chat? An official email? Sometimes, it takes ten minutes to answer a question that should have been answered in thirty seconds flat.
So, you get the picture. Cool Creatives is not all that cool.
But this isn’t just some sob story about a made-up agency. It represents countless agencies out there, to a lesser or larger degree.
Why are so many agencies struggling to hold it all together?
It’s simple, really.
They’re not using a project management communication plan. But what is a communication plan in project management?
In this blog, we’ll cover everything you need to know about communication plans in project management.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
A project communication plan is a document detailing the strategies, processes, and specific details of communicating with the stakeholders involved in projects. The communication plan for stakeholders is a fluid document, capable of expanding or shrinking based on the project requirements.
Agencies usually have a centralized communication plan for project management. This plan can later be modified to deal with the specific requirements of a project.
Asking an account manager if they can live without communication in project management is like asking a teenager if they can live without their smartphone. In both cases, the factual answer would be “yes,” they could live without. But in reality, their lives would be irreversibly altered.
A communication management plan keeps your team on the same page—figuratively and literally. Detailing when, why, and how team members communicate keeps projects on time by facilitating information sharing and tracking responsibilities. It also reduces disruptions by limiting communication to essential messages.
You may be able to live without a communication management plan if your project is of minimal scope or duration, thereby negating the need to stipulate provisions like when to use a chat instead of an email or a text instead of a phone call. Otherwise, you wouldn’t want to risk falling behind on a project because of poor communication.
When your graphic designer wants to run a design by their manager, do they know which communication method to use? Will it be emailed? Chat? Memo? Phone call?
Do your clients know when they can ask you and which medium to use when they want to know where the project is holding?
When you want to call a meeting together, do you have a quick and easy procedure for letting everyone know about it?
Having a robust communication matrix will mean you can confidently answer yes to all these questions. It’s the oil that makes your project-making machine run smoothly and efficiently.
Everyone involved in a project, including your team, your client, and, if relevant, project sponsors, needs to know the following:
When a project manager wants to update stakeholders on how the project is progressing, it will likely not be a text message or a chat notification. Likewise, a formal memo is not commonplace for asking a clarifying question to a coworker.
Put together a comprehensive list of all the different communication methods you’ll be using throughout the project when it would be appropriate to use each method of communication, and who should be communicated with about what.
While it might be quicker or easier for you to revert to a single communication form for everything, remember that your audience will vary, and the message needs to be tailored to the recipients. Some messages will need to come in the form of presentations or meetings. Others can be accomplished using an email or text message.
Increase productivity by sharing documents and files through creative management software that negates the need to send multiple emails back and forth. Such software also saves you time by allowing you to plan based on templates from similar projects.
Whenever possible, encourage methods that allow for feedback from your audience. If they have constructive criticism, you can use it to improve the project.
An amazing project management communication strategy emphasizes the methods that your team uses most efficiently. Speed up projects by leveraging communication means that work the fastest and with optimal clarity, matching workflow to work style, and standardizing processes like proof creation, revision, and approval.
In our increasingly dominant digital age, employing robust communication efforts is important. You don’t want your employees using outdated technology when they can utilize robust project management software to facilitate important exchanges.
But after all is said and done about the importance of a communication matrix in project management, here are two spoiler alerts:
The next rule in project communication is that your team should know where it is headed from its inception. “We’re going to complete this project quickly and do a good job for the client” won’t suffice. If even a single team member asks you what the project’s purpose is, you have not clearly communicated your goals and objectives. Be sure to communicate exactly why the project is important with your team before starting the scheduling process. Your timeline should be similarly clear with specific dates.
Set project goals in your communication plan using SMART criteria. That is, make them:
With any plan, you must first determine where you are going before planning how you will get there. What are you striving for? Brand awareness? Lead generation? Customer engagement?
Precisely define what you are trying to accomplish; the more intimately you can detail your plan to achieve those goals, the better. Then, follow through with detailed expectations for deliverables and timelines, confirming that team members and stakeholders understand and agree.
As you know, communication doesn’t come from a single source during the duration of a project. There are many types of communication in project management, so it’s essential to outline all roles and corresponding responsibilities in your plan. Be sure to assign based on talent. Utilizing the individual strengths of your team members not only increases collaboration and reduces conflict, but it also boosts ownership and accountability across the board.
If your team members aren’t doing what they should be doing or are doing what someone else should be doing, your project could be delayed, over budget, or disappoint your client.
Below are some common roles to consider:
Within the project team, you’ll have a variety of roles, plus all of the additional stakeholders who will be involved at some point or another. Make sure that everyone from the manager to the intern is aware of his/her responsibilities. You could—and should—give everyone a say, but your team will focus better if you avoid the din of competing voices by detailing who is responsible for what.
Set expectations for your project team. Some roles will have more responsibility than others. The project lead will be expected to contribute more throughout the project than the project sponsor. On the other hand, each individual or group will be expected to communicate properly when requested.
Death, taxes, and meetings are all part of life’s inevitable unpleasantries. I’ve been to countless meetings where I ask myself, “Why am I even here? What were we discussing?” as the meeting draws to a close. I consider my time one of my most valuable assets, and it’s quite discouraging to attend a meeting that has no agenda and follows no direct path from introduction to conclusion.
To make your meeting a valuable use of everyone’s time:
Effective communication in project management keeps meetings from meandering by providing guidelines on who will meet with whom, when, and—perhaps most importantly—why. This helps keep meetings on time and get the participants back to your project sooner.
As part of your project communication plan, incorporate clear instructions for keeping stakeholders informed. Establish thresholds for when to communicate and how to accommodate their personal preferences, such as email or phone calls.
Don’t assume any matter is too small to warrant your client’s attention—nor even an update for your agency’s owner. They may perceive something that seems to be a minor detail to you as indicative of large issues for them.
Involve clients as little or as much as they prefer, and you can stand. That’s not to say you can disagree with their wants or whims. But establishing guidelines on whom they can communicate with and how they can keep them from interfering with the project’s progress. Committing yourself to providing regular updates while actively seeking their engagement through a mutually agreeable project communication plan can give you both what you need.
Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time can be disastrous for a project. But knowing what to say, when, and how will help you keep your project on time, within budget, and in line with the client’s expectations.
Your project communication plan is the ideal opportunity to set expectations. Create the tone for all communication that will transpire from the outset and maintain consistency throughout to deliver your project on time, within budget, and in line with your client’s expectations.
While an effective project communication plan provides internal teams with direction, it’s equally important to be aware of external influencers. Even if you’re confident in your project’s vision, it’s crucial to include finalized client requirements in your plan. Consider revising your plan if you do not have an explicit statement of requirements from the client. Without them, you run the risk of unnecessary scope change or scope creep.
At some point in your managerial journey, you’ve probably heard the adage of underpromise and overdeliver. You’ve probably even made unreasonable promises at one time. Don’t worry—it’s human nature. However, there’s a fine line between setting high expectations and promising unrealistic goals. And far too often, external influencers cajole PMs into making promises that they know are impractical.
As hard as it may be, try to ignore pushy, persistent external factors. Rushing a project can lead to uninspired, sloppy work. Pick your battles—but be realistic and honest with your team, your stakeholders, and yourself.
Project management software is the ideal way to create a project communication plan template for estimates and creative briefs based on similar projects you previously completed. You can then route them to clients for speedy approval. Providing clients with online proof that they can view, change, and approve as part of your plan could also improve communication.
Frequent revisions or client complaints signify that you may not be communicating with them effectively. Unnecessary scope changes could also indicate that you may need to revise your project communication plan because your clients haven’t finalized their requirements.
Being vocal, clear, and receptive establishes your leadership and sets your expectations when you plan communication from the beginning of a project. Build upon previous successes. Customize your project template and review it with your team. Confirming that they understand each detail will help you reap the benefits of working together to attain your project’s goals.
Even the best-planned projects can go awry. How will you get yours back on track if it does? Avoid delays by including a risk management strategy in your project communication plan. Create contingency plans for overcoming potential obstacles such as scope changes, ensuring that team members and stakeholders know the contingency plan. Inform them of possible problems in advance as well so that no one is surprised should a situation arise.
Scope changes can be problematic, but they shouldn’t be catastrophic. If such a challenge puts you off schedule or over budget, you may need to update your project communication plan. You should incorporate a backup plan to handle potential pitfalls. Detailed details of who is responsible for preparing and implementing a response.
Nothing goes exactly as planned. Reviewing your schedule for potential problems and creating contingency plans for addressing them will help you respond quickly if an obstacle arises, like late-stage scope changes. A risk management strategy like this allows you to revise your project communication plan to maximize efficiency in any situation.
Essential communication plan elements, such as your project’s budget and resources, help you avoid any confusion about what your team can do.
Having a clear budget and a precise way of tracking it allows you the freedom to work on a project without second-guessing decisions. Project management software is often the quickest and most efficient way of staying on top of your budget.
Understanding your team’s abilities, talents, and weaknesses is crucial to establishing an effective communication plan. If you’re overly idealistic or downright uninformed about their capacity to handle a project, not only will it be difficult to set realistic deadlines, but it may be time to revise your communication plan.
Make sure you meet with your team to understand team members’ needs and expectations. Utilize marketing resource management project management software to pull reports and gauge past productivity. These measurements can help set expectations and estimates that are rooted in fact.
Analyze the success of your project communication plan so that your next one can be even more effective. Assess results regarding the measurable SMART goals you established at the outset. Which did you achieve? Where did you fall short? What were the strengths and weaknesses that contributed to the results? Meeting deadlines and budgets is paramount, but defining additional criteria for success will help you and your team become more efficient.
Is there any such thing as over-communicating?
In a project setting, definitely. There is a thin line between being clear and being annoying. Your clients and team members don't need to hear from you 15 times daily.
First, evaluate who needs to hear from you and what they need to hear. Every project has a clear hierarchy in terms of interest and importance. Some stakeholders need daily updates. With others, you can update them once a month, and that’s good enough.
Another example of misuse of communication is when technology is overused.
The simplest example of this pitfall is when two co-workers are across a cubicle wall or a 10-second walk away, but instead of communicating in person directly, they choose to use chat messaging at the computer. This isn’t always a bad thing; if there is a quick question with a direct answer, it’s now recorded in the chat log. More often than not, though, I’ve seen a conversation drag on for over 10 minutes, with limited productivity outside of the conversation, when it could have been solved in under two minutes, including walking time. Of course, that assumes that at the end of the 10 minutes, the individual with the question was completely informed and wouldn’t need to ask any more follow-up questions.
Another example would be using a shared network drive that can only be accessed within the company’s network. If you’re working with outside collaborators, you require them to be on-site to work on the project.
Getting your communication just right is part of your communication plan. Work out how often communication is required and ensure your team understands the most effective communication methods in different scenarios.
Now that we’ve discussed and dissected all the important elements of a good project communication plan let’s take a deep dive into the process of creating one. I’ll also show you some examples of project management communication plans along the way.
The client communication plan is based on the specific requirements of each project. It can be as complex or clear as the project demands.
Therefore, you must understand the project’s scope and requirements before developing a communication plan. This is a three-step process, otherwise known as the stakeholder communication matrix:
I’ll walk you through these three steps below.
A “stakeholder” is anyone who has an interest or concern in the project and who can influence its outcome.
Stakeholders can be of three types:
In a new spreadsheet, list everyone involved in the project. Identify whether this person is on your team, on the client’s side, or belongs to a third party. Also, include their position. You can include the department for large projects with involvement from multiple departments.
Project Communication Plan Example
This list of stakeholders will be the foundation of your communication plan, so make sure to keep it as comprehensive as possible.
The stakeholder management plan is focused on four things:
In your stakeholder spreadsheet, add additional columns for “Influence”, “Interest”, “Objectives” and “Contact”.
Communication plan example
You’ll score “Influence” and “Interest” on a scale of 1-5 (or 1-10 - whatever suits you). The higher this number, the higher the stakeholder’s priority in your communication plan.
Here are a few tips to help you figure out influence and interest scores:
Consult your team for scoring each stakeholder. You don’t have to get this 100% right. You’ll use this only as a guideline for communication.
You also need to identify each stakeholder’s key objectives and motivations besides influence and interest. This will help you decide what information to communicate to them.
For instance, if the stakeholder is only concerned with the new revenue generated from the project, you don’t have to bother them with daily check-ins. You can update them once a month about the project's progress, spending, and, eventually, the results.
Motivations can be:
Again, remember that you don’t have to get this data 100% right. You only want near approximations to determine how, when, and what to communicate to each stakeholder. You can even skip this part for smaller projects with limited stakeholders.
Finally, key contact information for each stakeholder, including preferred communication channels, will be added.
In the next step, I’ll show you how to turn all this data into a communication plan.
The data you gathered in the above step will determine your client communication's frequency, format, and content.
For example, you might send weekly check-in emails to stakeholders who have a high interest and influence in the project. Stakeholders who only have high influence but no interest can be emailed once a month with updates.
In your spreadsheet, make note of each of the following for all stakeholders:
How often you communicate with the stakeholders will depend on their interests, influence, and position. Generally speaking, the higher the stakeholder’s interest and influence, the more frequent the communication.
The length and tone of each message. This will depend on the stakeholder’s position and your existing relationship with him/her.
For instance, you might send busy executives short, formal emails about the project status. For internal stakeholders, you might send more casual messages.
Determine what kind of communication to send each stakeholder - daily check-ins, weekly updates, hours worked, etc.
This will depend largely on the stakeholders' motivations, interests, and positions. You might send a monthly high-level update to the executive sponsor and a detailed report of hours worked to the client liaison each week.
What to deliver in each communication.
For instance, you might share a mock-up of the website in your weekly progress report with management on your side. For your daily check-in with the project leader, you might share a list of tasks completed and hours worked.
Each stakeholder can have different communication preferences for different communication types. For instance, you might do a weekly check-in via email and have a Skype chat once a month for progress reports.
Specify when to start communicating with the stakeholders. You’ll want to involve some stakeholders right after the project kick-off. Others - especially third-party stakeholders - don’t need to receive communication until the project is near completion.
For example, if you’re building a new tech product for a client, you don’t need to involve journalists and tech influencers until you at least have a working prototype.
Add all this data to your existing spreadsheet like this:
Communication Plan Example
This will form the basis of your communication plan.
Your spreadsheet now has enough data to help you create a specific communication plan for each stakeholder.
In a new document, list every stakeholder. Note what, where, and how often to communicate, as well as the communication tone and style.
Something like this:
Share this plan with anyone on your team who will communicate with the client. Make this a “living” document, i.e., get your team to review and update it as you gather more information about the client.
You can also add/remove stakeholders from this document as the project progresses.
While stakeholder-specific communication will ensure that you send the right messages to the right person, you also need a communication plan for specific events, such as a kickoff or monthly status meeting.
To do this, you need to identify:
Add all this data to a communication plan template in Excel, like this:
Communication Plan Template for Project Management in Excel
You can then create a project management communication plan template for each event-type based on the participants, objectives and preferred channel.
Try as hard as you might; issues will crop up in any project. As the project manager, you must address any contingencies and concerns.
Besides stakeholder-specific communication plans, you should also have a strategy to handle the following:
In your communication plan, note who to contact (both internally and externally) in case of an emergency. Identify what exactly to communicate to them.
Ideally, you’ll want to target stakeholders who a) are highly interested in the project’s success and b) have enough responsibility to resolve the emergency, if necessary.
You can go further and have separate plans based on the scale of the emergency. For instance, in case of a major emergency, you’ll want to contact leaders on your and the client’s team.
On the other hand, in case of minor emergencies, you can limit communication with your project team alone.
In every complex project, some people will oppose certain things on either side. Anticipating these objections and charting their responses can make the project run smoothly.
In your document, make a list of potential objections. Consult with your team to create a strategy to address each objection, such as:
The idea behind this is to have a ready-made communication strategy in case of any contingencies. It’s unnecessary, but it will save you a world of trouble once issues arise.
You can turn your plan into stakeholder-specific communication templates in this final step.
For example, in the above document, we send weekly updates to the project leader on the client. This update includes:
Instead of writing an email from scratch, you can create a communication management plan template to use for all such updates across all your projects.
You can export data from a project management tool like Workamajig to make your job easier.
Share these templates with your team. Use them for all scheduled updates with the client. This will bring much-needed uniformity and standardization to your client communication.
Communication Plan Example
Credit: Hubspot
Creating winning client communication plans is a matter of understanding:
Once you know these details, you can create highly targeted communication plans for everyone involved in the project. This will help standardize your communication and help the project run smoother.
Let’s review:
Now, let’s go all the way back to Cool Creatives–remember them?
After reading Workamajig’s blog on communication plans, Cool Creatives implemented all the tips discussed here. It didn’t happen overnight, but life at Cool Creatives was transformed within a couple of weeks.
Nowadays, when Ron, the account manager, needs to discuss clients with Lily, the project manager, he sends a quick templated email to which Lily can easily respond. Ron can even anticipate when it would be a good time to meet with Lily, as he has full insight into Lily’s schedule, thanks to the project management software they’ve started using.
Dave, the copywriter, has decided to stay with Cool Creatives. Thanks to Lily’s new practice of frequently meeting with the creatives on the team, it was discovered that he was being given the sort of jobs he didn’t enjoy. Now that Cool Creatives is much more focused on assigning roles appropriately; employees feel happier and more appreciated for their strengths.
As for Anne’s problems with accurately keeping track of her hours, tracking time at Cool Creatives has become as easy as pie. With the task management feature in the project management software, all Anne has to do is clock in and out of the program, choose a program, choose a task from her personalized drop-down menu, and she’s good to go—and she gets paid 100% accurately at the end of each month!
Sounds like they’ve got their act together, no?
Well, YOUR agency can do it too!
And to get you a hop, skip, and jump ahead of the game, I want to tell you a bit about Workamajig.
As software designed exclusively for creative agencies, Workamajig specializes in bringing all your project management requirements under one comfy roof. From task management to time tracking to marketing agency accounting features client billing, Workamajig automates your processes so you can easily stay on top of projects- no sweat, and lots more profit, thanks to all the time Workamajig saves you.
As for communication plans, that becomes easy and breezy with Workamajig!
You get to share documents and files instead of wasting time going back and forth with multiple emails, create reusable templates, see who’s doing what at what time, and generally make the most of the latest technology and keep your projects moving quickly and efficiently!
Better communication, better projects.
Find out how marketing project management software like Workamajig can help make it happen today.
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