Planning sessions

There are all sorts of things you can cover in a planning session. To keep your communication planning session focused following is a suggested agenda:

Introduction

• Explain the purpose of the meeting and the agenda
• Invite people to introduce themselves

Agree on your communication objectives

• What do you want this plan to achieve?

Key messages

• List the main messages you need to communicate

Audiences or stakeholders

• List all of the different groups of people who need to understand your project, these are your audiences
• Prioritise and select the most critical six audiences

Address the following questions with the group, for each of the identified audiences:

• Where are they today in terms of understanding and commitment?
• Where do we need them to be?
• What do they need to hear to help them get there?
• How should this happen (eg face to face, NuNet etc)?
• Who should be responsible for managing the communication?
• How will we know this has worked? How do we measure success?

Communication priorities

• In the next three months what must happen and when?

What is critical?

• List your actions with dates and responsibilities

Next steps

• Summarise what has been covered
• Outline what happens next