Stakeholder Project Communication Plan

To start, make a copy of this Confluence Template, or create a table on a whiteboard or collaborative document.

At the top of the table, write the name of the project or initiative and the goal of this stakeholder communication plan. What is the purpose of this plan? For example:

• Build trust with our stakeholders.

• Reduce risks stemming from duplicated effort and dependency bottlenecks.

• Educate downstream teams about what we're doing and how it may affect their work.

Stakeholders include:

a) Contributors: People or teams who’s time, decisions, or expertise are critical to doing the work. (i.e., members of the core project team)

b) Beneficiaries: People or teams who aren’t directly responsible for delivery, but who benefit from or are impacted by the work and therefore need to know what’s happening, but aren’t directly responsible for delivery. (i.e., cross-functional partners, leaders, executive sponsors, and adjacent or downstream teams)

Make a list of each type of stakeholder by answering the following questions. This can either be done individually or as a group, asynchronously or in real time. If done individually, share the list with the project team to refine and gain consensus.

• Who will be involved day to day in this project? → Contributor

• Who is critical to this project’s success? → Contributor

• Whose input do we need to make progress? → Contributor or beneficiary

• Who can unblock or accelerate this work? → Beneficiary

• Who approves this project or key parts of it? → Beneficiary

• Beyond the contributors, who else is impacted by the project’s success? → Beneficiary

• Who needs what we’re doing and may not even realize it? → Beneficiary

Add these people to the table created in Step 1.

Different stakeholders need different information, at different times, communicated in different ways.

Contributors need more frequent updates and information like:

• Detailed tasks, issues, and backlog

• Status at the work-item level (e.g., tickets moving across a board)

• All the in-the-weeds decisions and tradeoffs

• Working notes and drafts that may be messy or in progress

Beneficiaries likely need less frequent updates and information like:

A clear, high-level source of truth for:

• What this project is, who’s involved, and why it matters

  • The goals, scope, and key milestones

  • Current status and recent changes/decisions that affect them

• Only the most relevant links to detailed work, so they don’t have to sift through every task to understand what’s going on

• Guidance on how and when they should engage, like whether they need to simply stay informed or be consulted

Using this breakdown as a guide, fill out the table you created in Step 1, considering the channels that are most appropriate for each stakeholder, the type of information they need, how often they need it, and any relevant notes or links to artifacts.

Agree on an owner for the overall communication plan or assign an owner to specific communications. 

Next, add contributors and beneficiaries to the project in your tool of choice, like Atlassian Home or Jira. (The name for these users varies by project management tool. For example, in Atlassian, beneficiary stakeholders are called “followers” or “watchers.”)  

Then, create a Slack or Teams channel with the same people for daily communication. If possible, integrate your project management system and communication tool (e.g., Jira and Slack) so that updates made in the project management system are automatically posted to the communication channel.

Post a message in the communication channel to kick off the initiative, introduce everyone, and set expectations. You’ll want to provide an overview of:

• What the project is

• The goals of this individual project, plus the broader goals it ladders up to

• What communication can they expect to receive, when, and how you would like them to engage

You can also talk with these stakeholders to better understand their priorities. That way, your team can adjust your communication plan and deliver even more value.

Post Weekly Updates

Commit to keeping your project status up-to-date and proactively providing stakeholders with relevant updates. When an update is particularly important for someone, tag them for visibility.