How to write a communication plan: Examples + template

Successful collaboration starts with clear communication. When your team knows where to share updates, how often to connect, and who to loop in, projects run more smoothly. But without a plan, even simple messages can get lost in the shuffle.

The good news is, creating an effective communication plan isn't difficult. In this article, we'll walk you through the key components of a communication plan, how to write one step by step, and share a template so you can create your own.

What is a communication plan?

A communication plan is a document that outlines how you'll share important project information with stakeholders. It defines which channels to use, how often to communicate, and who is responsible for each type of message. A strong communication plan helps your team understand who should receive which updates and when to loop in key project stakeholders.

Sharing a communication plan gives your team clarity about which tools to use and who to contact. Without one, team members may ask questions in tools others rarely check, leading to frustration and stalled work. A simple miscommunication can quickly spiral out of control when no one knows what. In fact, 86% of employees cite poor communication as the primary cause of workplace failures, making a structured communication plan essential for any team.

What should a communication plan include?

Your communication plan is your one-stop shop for your project communication strategy. Team members should be able to use the communication plan to answer project questions like:

• What communication channels are we using? What is each channel used for?

• When should we communicate in person vs. asynchronously?

• What are the project roles? Who is the project manager? Who is on the project team? Who are the project stakeholders?

• How are important project details, like project status updates, going to be communicated? How frequently will these be shared?

What shouldn't be included in a communication plan?

A communication plan will help you clarify how you'll communicate with your project team and project stakeholders, whether they are internal team members at your company or external stakeholders like customers or contractors.

A communication plan in project management is not a PR plan. This plan will not help you align on your social media strategy, identify a target audience, or establish key messages for different demographics. If you need to build out those plans, consider creating a social media content calendaror a business strategy plan.

Key components of a communication plan

Before you start writing, it helps to know what goes into a communication plan. While every plan is different, most include these five core components. Think of them as the building blocks for keeping your team aligned and informed.

1. Audience

This is who you're communicating with. Your audience can range from your core project team to executive stakeholders and external partners. Clearly identifying each audience helps you tailor your message and choose the right channel.

2. Key message

This is the what, the core information you need to share. For an executive, the key message might be about project milestones and business impact. For your project team, it might be about specific task assignments and deadlines.

3. Communication channel

This is where you'll share your message. Your plan should specify which tool to use for each purpose, such as email for external updates, a messaging tool for quick questions, and a work management platform for official project updates. With 76% of professionals now communicating across more channels than the previous year, a comprehensive communication plan must account for diverse platforms and workflows.

4. Frequency

This is how often you'll communicate. Your plan should set a clear rhythm for updates, such as daily check-ins, weekly status reports, or monthly stakeholder meetings. This manages expectations and ensures a steady flow of information.

5. Owner

This is who is responsible for sending the communication. Assigning an owner to each type of communication ensures accountability and prevents messages from being missed.

The benefits of a communication plan

Obviously, clear communication in the workplaceis a good thing. But do you really need a written communication plan to do that? In a word: yes. A good communication plan helps you:

• Share the right information with the right people: Executive stakeholders don't need every project detail, and not every team member needs to join external partner calls.

• Reduce guesswork: By clarifying where and how you'll communicate, you eliminate confusion and unblock your team.

• Keep projects moving: When everyone knows the plan, work doesn't stall waiting for answers.

Less app switching

We recently interviewed over 13,000 global knowledge workers and found that the average knowledge worker switches between 10 and 25 apps per day. Instead of focusing on high-impact work or collaborating effectively with their team members, knowledge workers are sinking hours into simply figuring out where to communicate.

A communication plan can eliminate this guessing game. For example, if your team knows that you only communicate about work in a work management tool, they can search for key information there, instead of digging through document folders, Slack messages, and multiple email chains. Similarly, when you know that a team member is only tangentially working on the project, you won't bother them with a question about when the next project deliverableis due.

Increased collaboration

Team collaboration isn't an effortless process; it's a skill you have to build. One part of creating effective team collaborationis clarifying your team's communication conventions. This is especially important for remote or distributed teams, where uncertainty about how or where to communicate can become a barrier.

Your communication plan is an opportunity to clarify where team members should communicate. Depending on the level of detail, you can also include when team members should communicate and clarify team conventions for setting "Do not disturb" mode or snoozing notifications.

By providing these guidelines, you're effectively removing one of the biggest barriers to easy communication and collaboration between team members. When team members know where to communicate, and just as importantly, where not to communicate, they can be confident they're sending the right message at the right time.

Less duplicative work

Currently, knowledge workers spend 60% of their time on busywork, tasks that take time away from impactful work. Common examples include:

• Searching for documents

• Chasing approvals

• Switching between apps

• Following up on work status

Part of this busywork stems from not knowing where to communicate things. If team members don't have a clear sense of where information is shared, things like your project planor project timeline, then they'll have to dig through multiple tools or ask several team members just to find the right information. As a result, team members who are unclear about where to communicate about work also have a harder time simply finding existing work.

Busywork leads to more manual, duplicative work and less clarity overall. In fact, according to the Anatomy of Work Index, we spend 13% of our time, 236 hours per year, on work that's already been completed. By sharing your communication plan, you can give your team clarity into exactly where work lives, so they don't have to spend all that time finding it themselves.

How to write a communication plan

A communication plan is a powerful tool, but it's also relatively easy to create. You can create a communication plan in four steps.

1. Establish your communication methods

The first step to creating a communication plan is to decide where your team will communicate and what it will communicate. This includes when to use which tools and when to use synchronous vs. asynchronous communication.

As you define your communication plan, identify what each tool is for. For example, you might decide to use:

• Email to communicate with any external stakeholders.

• Slack for synchronous communication about day-to-day updates and quick questions.

• Asana to communicate asynchronously about work, like task details, project status updates, or key project documents.

• Zoom or Google Meet for any team meetings, such as project brainstorms or your project post-mortem.

2. Align on communication cadence

Now that you know where you'll be communicating, you also need to determine how often you'll be communicating. Your communication cadence is your plan for updating different stakeholders about different project details.

For example, you might decide to schedule:

• Weekly project status updates are posted in Asana to all project stakeholders and project sponsors.

• Monthly project team meetings to unblock any work or brainstorm next steps.

• Asynchronous project milestone updates in Asana as needed.

3. Add a plan for stakeholder management

Running a successful project often depends on getting stakeholder support and buy-in. At the beginning of the project, you'll do this during the project kickoff meeting, but it's also critical to maintain stakeholder support throughout your project.

Take some time as you draft your communication plan to detail when to communicate with each project stakeholder and what to communicate. Some people, like your key project team members, will be communicating about this project regularly, maybe even daily. Other project stakeholders may only need to be looped in during project status updates or maybe just at the final readout.

By creating a stakeholder engagement plan, you can ensure they're being contacted at the right time about the right things. The communication they receive should answer questions at their level of detail, with a focus on business results and overall high-level impact.

4. Share your communication plan and update it as needed

Once you've created your communication plan, it's time to share it with your project team. Make sure your communication plan is accessible in your central source of truth for all project information. We recommend using Asanato to track all project communication and work, so you can talk about what you're working on.

If any changes impact your project communication plan, make sure you update it and communicate those changes. That way, team members always have access to the most up-to-date information.

How to measure communication plan effectiveness

A communication plan is a living document. To make sure it's working, check in on it from time to time. You don't need complex analytics; just look for simple, clear signals.

Signs your communication plan is working:

• Team members ask fewer questions about where to find information

• Stakeholders receive the right level of detail at the right time

• Channels are being used as intended

A great way to evaluate your plan is to ask for feedback directly through a quick poll or team meeting. If a channel is consistently misused, revisit your plan and adjust as needed.

Example communication plan

Communication plan template

Description of communication

What type of communication is it?

Frequency

How often will you be communicating?

Channel

Which tool will you be using? Is this synchronous or asynchronous communication?

Audience

Who is receiving this communication?

Owner

Who is in charge of sending out this communication?

Good communication starts with a communication plan

Clear communication can help you send the right message at the right time. Empower effortless collaboration while also ensuring every team member is being looped in at the right times. That way, your team can spend less time communicating about work and more time on high-impact work.

Ready to put your communication plan into action? Use our communication plan template and get started with Asana to keep your team aligned and your projects on track.

Frequently asked questions about communication plans