All areas of life require good communication if they are to be successful, but when when communication is performed poorly or not at all, people and results suffer.

Programme and Project Management are the same and when it comes to communication, no methodology or framework can substitute understanding people. Various organisations such as the UK OGC, set out guidelines, but they can only be effective when they are used by Programme Managers who understands people and the human element of communication.

A Programme is often in greater need for effective communication because it is often a one-off initiative. This is highlighted in The Gower Book of Programme Management and it goes on to say that a programme will not always enjoy the luxury of a regular collection of disciplines and management structures.

Often people focus on certain areas of managing a programme. The outcome is that assets like the Communications Plan drift into the background as other matters take priority. Furthermore, many people do not appreciate the real benefits of a Communications Plan.

A Programme Communications Plan must be viewed as a strategic tool and a dynamic document. Not a static document with a few blanks to be filled in. When the plan is created with a casual approach, the Programme Manager concerned will often communicate on the fly – instead of according to plan. The result can be a mediocre and hurried effort which only serves to achieve less than satisfactory results. You can compare this to a Project Manager creating a project plan and not using it! Both are recipes for failure.

The Communications Plan can be powerful tool in the right hands. It can be used to build relationships with both internal and external stakeholders, which means it should become a high priority. Stakeholders should be well informed so that when the programme runs into the inevitable challenges, the well informed stakeholders with whom we have already built relationships, are far more likely to support us in our hour of need. We are more likely to gain support from well informed stakeholders who we have built relationships with than from those who are strangers. And the better our relationships, the less likely we are to encounter problems.

At the most basic level, the failure to follow a good Communications Plan will often result in complaints such as; “I don’t understand”, “you didn’t tell me” and “where did this come from”. Treat the Communications Plan as a dynamic tool that can be used to foster relationships and promote your programme. To do this it needs to be a living breathing high priority document which is both implemented and kept up to date.

In Stephen Covey’s book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, the 5th Habit he writes about is the principle of empathic communication and he describes communication as the most important skill in life. He adds; “if I were to summarise in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the vital to effective interpersonal communication?.

In Robert Bolton’s book, ‘People Skills’, he writes; “communication skills alone are insufficient – the person who has mastered the skills of communication but lacks genuineness, love and empathy will find his expertise irrelevant or even harmful”.

Whether we are dealing with our internal or external programme communications, a Communications Plan in the hands of a Programme Manager who ignores emphatic communication, is like a baton (stick) in the hands of a tone-deaf conductor. The Plan alone will get you a tick in the box, but it will not get you far beyond that.