BPM projects are used by senior people to drive the organisation forward and this involves creating an environment where difficult issues can be surfaced, debated maturely and effective actions agreed. Unless all stakeholders are regularly updated on the project, have their concerns addressed and can identify with the expected benefits, then their support cannot be taken for granted.

This guideline, and associated template, will help you to identify and record the various stakeholders in your project, tailor communication to their needs and establish the roles of your sponsor and project team.

• Download the communication approach guideline (read first)

The template shows a fairly common way of identifying the communications approach to be used on major projects. It can be used at the project initiation stage to identify interested parties, document the interests of different groups and ensure that mechanisms are put in place to keep them informed about project progress and issues once the project is underway. At this stage it allows the sponsor and project team to ensure they have communicated the rationale for the project, its impact, and the resources needed to all the appropriate stakeholders. Without this it is unlikely that the business case wild receive uniform approval.

As the project progresses, the stakeholder communications analysis will need to be updated and as good practice it should be revisited by the senior steering committee on a regular basis (approximately quarterly).

• Download the communication plan template (use second)