Misunderstood: Corporate vs. Project Communications
Corporate communications are informational and focused on brand/reputation management and marketing. Project communications are both informational focused on the project’s purpose and directive in preparing and supporting the project stakeholders for the changes that the project will bring.
Once I recognized this difference, I understood why my previous experience consulting corporate communications for guidance on enterprise-wide, strategic projects had not been successful. I learned to look to corporate communications for guidance in project information communications and to other sources for change management communication. As a result, the project information communications were aligned with corporate information communications which helped credibility and meant that the project change communications could focus on what the stakeholders had to do to prepare and what support was available to them. And it made working with the corporate communications folks so very much easier and less frustrating!
I use the example of a strategic enterprise project to replace the organization’s email/calendaring system because everyone uses email/calendaring and can imagine how disruptive this change could be. We discuss project communications in two phases – informational to let everyone know the change is coming and directive to let everyone know what the project team is doing and what they must do to ensure the transition disruption for them is minimized.
I looked for images but was not surprised when I couldn’t find any because this way of looking at project communications is not yet widespread.
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