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The Managerial Communications podcast ([url]http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/01/managerial-communications[/url]) offers a "Communications Plan" pdf. I began my Plan, and now have the questions regarding the MT plan. While each industry will have its specific needs, I am looking at this from an IT Managerial role, supporting a production facility with numerous departments. Each department has a manager, and has specific IT project needs.

1. Corporate Events - the top row. It appears based on the legend that this row is merely a timeline for reference. Correct?

2. Staff Meetings - these would be my Staff meetings with my directs;

3. Customer Leads - does this row represent my meetings with my customers, as mentioned in "Jump Starting Internal Customer Relationships"?

4. Bi-weekly Skip - self explanatory;

5. Key Leader Status Calls - I am not sure what these "meetings" represent;

6. Management Communications - these appear to be topic specific that is time sensitive based on the calendar year

7. All Staff Comms - I am confused between this row and the prior row. What is the difference in purpose? Is this a catch-all group?

Communications [b]not [/b]listed, but may be worthy of listing, are as follows:
a. My boss' Staff meeting, where I report upwards
b. The monthly Performance meetings I attend with all of my customers' managers and higher
c. O3s - the Skip meetings are listed (row 4), but not the O3s.

Thank you in advance for any clarification and input.
Steve

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Submitted by lmoorhead on Friday March 7th, 2008 8:31 pm

I'm also an IT manager. Since I didn't write the example one I can't necessarily give a definitive answer, but we have a plan similar to the example which might provide some insight.

[quote]1. Corporate Events - the top row. It appears based on the legend that this row is merely a timeline for reference. Correct? [/quote]

For us it is more than a reference - for example we provide budget input to each business group based on the technology projects they've planned for the coming year, so we back our timeline out from the date the corporate budget and headcount plan is approved, to give us time to prepare and communicate those estimates to the business.

[quote]3. Customer Leads - does this row represent my meetings with my customers, as mentioned in "Jump Starting Internal Customer Relationships"?

5. Key Leader Status Calls - I am not sure what these "meetings" represent; [/quote]

For us, this refers to O3s with our customers. All of the managers have monthly O3s with the customers they serve, which are typically front line managers. On top of that, we have regular (schedule varies) O3's with the execs for the different functional areas. I should say this was a bit more difficult to implement, we definitely had to build some credibility first before we could get to this.

[quote]6. Management Communications - these appear to be topic specific that is time sensitive based on the calendar year [/quote]

That's what it means for us :)

[quote]7. All Staff Comms - I am confused between this row and the prior row. What is the difference in purpose? Is this a catch-all group? [/quote]

Seems to me this is the whole department as opposed to just a subset.

[quote]Communications not listed, but may be worthy of listing, are as follows:
a. My boss' Staff meeting, where I report upwards
b. The monthly Performance meetings I attend with all of my customers' managers and higher
c. O3s - the Skip meetings are listed (row 4), but not the O3s. [/quote]

Here are some other things we include:
- O3s are in there :) as are quarterly reviews and development plans, and annual performance reviews
- Development and publication of quarterly objectives and annual goals
- Publication of metrics data
- Bi-annual customer satisfaction surveys
- Update and publication of key documents (e.g. roadmaps)
- SOX testing and communication of results

I'm happy to explain or share what we have developed.