How to Create an Effective IT Communication Plan

Lack of communication can have a huge impact on your organization. Regular and clear communication can help you in overcoming the department and information silos. Large organizations generally have multiple communication methods and channels. They have micro-cultures which are followed by small teams. Due to this, it is difficult to transfer information. Organizations need a good IT communication plan for solving this problem. This is very important now as companies are more relying on remote work. The remote work phenomenon is not going away. Thus, it is important for companies to work on digital communication. In this article, we are going to share tips that will help you in creating a good IT communication plan.

What is a business communication plan?

This plan will provide directions to your employees. It will help them in the effective flow of information. Thus, it will help them in driving a positive business result. A good communication plan will first identify the need and audience. It will also determine the delivery methods of communication. Your communication plan will also include a special section for key communications. The main aim of a communication plan is to engage, educate, and inform the external and internal stakeholders. This will help you in ensuring a seamless and smooth information flow between external and internal stakeholders.

For example, if you are updating your IT policy, then you need to inform your staff. Your directors, managers, and engineers need to know about this update in advance. They need to be consulted before you do any policy updates. The rest of the staff can be informed after the update is done. Your communication plan will provide a framework for such situations. This will ensure that specific and clear messages can be delivered to the right people at the right time.

Why your IT communication plan is important for your business?

IT or Information technology is very important for your business. You can’t operate your business without Information technology. We can’t imagine a modern workplace without IT. Thus, your IT department and the team will play a very important role in ensuring that your organization is functioning properly. However, companies are still not focusing on their IT. They only remember their IT teams or departments when something is not working properly.

An effective IT communication plan can help you in avoiding this problem. Your employees and stakeholders will understand your IT department’s role. It will help you in effectively communicating with the stakeholders. Your employees can easily collaborate with each other. This will increase the success rate of your initiatives and project.

A good IT communication plan is not important for your IT department only. It is important for your entire organization. Some of the main benefits of an IT communication plan are:

• A good IT communication plan will help you in managing expectations during unplanned outages, maintenance, and upgrades.
• You can easily share updates about IT initiatives and projects.
• You can educate your employees on IT policies and IT security. This will help you in implementing your IT security policies.
• An effective IT communication plan will help you in crisis management during cyberattacks and disasters.
• You can share best practices, tips, and tricks with your employees. These tricks should help you in reducing your IT helpdesk workload.
• IT communication plan is very important for facilitating digital transformation. If you want to achieve digital transformation, then you should start by creating an effective IT communication plan.
• It will help you in showing the value of IT investments. Thus, you can invest in better IT infrastructure and projects.

How to create a good IT communication plan?

Your IT communication plan will look similar to your business communication plan. Thus, you can follow a similar strategy for creating your IT communication plan. However, IT-related initiatives will generally have a significant and immediate impact on your end-users. They need better engagement before you implement them. We are going to share seven steps that you can follow for creating a good IT communication plan. This will ensure that your IT communication is working optimally.

1. Understand your audience

Every organization will have different people and audience types. Your employees will be segmented according to their departments, hierarchy, teams, geographical location, and software users. Every piece of information won’t be relevant to all your employees. For example, one of your applications might be down which is used by 10% of your employees. You don’t need to send a message to all your employees. The best way to address this situation is by messaging the employees that are affected.

This can be done by first understanding your audience. If you understand your audience, then you can send the right information to them. It is important to ensure that you are sending only important data to your employees. This step will help you in ensuring that you are sending the correct message to the correct audience. It is important to ensure that your users are involved in the communication. If you are sending useless emails to your employees, then they will ignore your communication in the future. It is important to ensure that you are sending the right message to the right audience. Understanding your audience will ensure that you can perfectly craft your audience. This will help you in sending the right message to the right audience segments.

2. Involve your stakeholders in communication

If you are introducing new IT changes or initiatives, then you should be ready for some resistance. It is a very common occurrence. Your employees will generally resist any change in the starting. The changes resulting from IT initiatives and IT-related projects are very difficult to manage. These IT initiatives are going to affect a large number of employees and end-users. Thus, these changes are very difficult to manage.

However, this is not an impossible task to achieve. You should involve your stakeholders from the beginning. This will ensure that you and your stakeholders are on the same page from the beginning. It will help you in improving engagement and facilitating communication. This is very important for the success of IT initiatives and projects. Your communication flow will be effective when your stakeholders understand their responsibility and roles. They should understand the importance of these IT initiatives. This will ensure that your stakeholders will adopt new changes. Involving your stakeholders from the beginning will help them in understanding the challenges and motivations. You can get input from them and improve your IT products. This will help you in crafting a better communication message for your employees.

3. Create a plan according to your organization’s communication culture

You know your audience now. Also, you know when you should communicate with your audience. The next step is to determine how you are going to communicate with your audience. Different audiences can have different communication styles. For example, most IT teams are still using the ticketing system. Your operations department will generally prefer tools like Slack. Senior management will still love using the old emails.

The tool will ultimately depend on your organization’s communication culture. You also need to determine the frequency and language of your communication. This will depend on your audience. The biggest challenge is to communicate with your senior leaders. They are generally very busy. Thus, you need to draft a message that can reach everyone.

You should first create a list of communication tools that your organization is using. It is important to understand which audience likes which communication tool. Make sure that you have a strategy that you can follow for communicating with your senior leaders. Sometimes you can do face-to-face communication with your audience via presentations. You should also check the physical communication tools that are available. These will include tools like digital signage and bulletin boards.

4. Two-way communication

You can never assume that your communication was successful until you verify it. Your communication will be only successful once your audience understands it and acknowledge it. Thus, your audience should provide feedback after they receive your message. This can be a simple acknowledgment that your employees have received your message. In some cases, you can conduct workshops, face-to-face meetings, polls, and surveys for ensuring that your audience has understood your message.

If you are communicating new policies with your audience, then you should send them quizzes and tests to test your audience. This will ensure that your audience actually understands your new policies. It is important to ensure that you are transparent and open. If you are communicating about things like outages, then you need to be honest and accurate. Your end-users will generally be upset about outages. However, if you are lying to them, then this will make the matters worse. Make sure that you are giving only accurate information to your end-users.

5. Talk with your organization’s main influencers

Your organization will have some influencers. These are similar to social media influencers. The main thing about these influencers is that they can communicate without following the formal reporting structure. They might be subject matter experts. It is important to know Ywho these influencers are in your organization. Make sure that you understand their sphere of influence.

You should try to get support from these influencers. This will help you in amplifying your communications. These influencers should be your biggest allies. They should help you in getting your message across effectively and quickly. Your employees will also adopt new processes easily if they are coming from their colleagues. Thus, your influencers will act as advocates of your initiatives and projects.

6. Document your communication plan

You need to document your communication plan. This will help you in formalizing your communication plan. Documentation will also act as a quick reference for your employee. You should create formal procedures and policies for describing what message you are going to communicate and how you are going to communicate it. It should also mention who will communicate these messages. This will ensure that everyone knows their responsibilities and roles. It will help you during a time of crisis. Thus, you should focus on creating a solid communication plan.

7. Update your plan regularly

Your IT communication plan is not going to be static in nature. It will be living data. You should gather data like how many people are opening your emails. This will help you in measuring the effectiveness of your current IT communication strategy. You also need qualitative data like feedback from interviews and surveys. This will help you in understanding the success of your communication plan. You should use both quantitative and qualitative data for improving your communication plan. Changes in your culture, tools, and hierarchy will have a huge impact on your communication plan. Thus, you should regularly monitor your communication plan. Make sure that you are updating your communication plan after doing these reviews.

Conclusion

A good IT communication plan will help you in effectively delivering your messages related to your IT projects. It is important to receive relevant communications from a source that you can trust. This is especially important when you are facing a crisis like unplanned outages and cyber-attacks. A good IT communication plan should identify the important and relevant message. It should help you in finding the right communication channel. This will ensure that your users will stay engaged. They won’t ignore your important messages.

The importance of IT in communication is growing with time. This is especially important due to the rise of remote work. Good communication will help you in maintaining and building relationships with your employees and stakeholders. A good MSP like Bleuwire can help you in bridging the gap. They will provide transparent and efficient IT services to your business. This will enable frequent and clear communication with your business. If you need more information regarding IT services, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.