You're managing a program with diverse stakeholders. How can you ensure everyone understands the updates?

Consider writing targeted briefs for different audiences e.g., donors, participants, implementers that are co-created and piloted before being disseminated to the respective teams. This may include translation of briefs to local languages and use of images, graphics or illustrations that can easily be understood

When you're managing a program with diverse stakeholders, customizing your communications is essential. Start by understanding who needs what: your technical stakeholders want in-depth data, while those focused on business outcomes prefer concise summaries. To hit the mark, create different versions of your updates. For example, send detailed progress reports to your technical team, complete with metrics and specifics. Meanwhile, offer high-level overviews to business stakeholders, highlighting key milestones and outcomes. By tailoring your communication to each group's needs, you ensure everyone gets the information they value most, keeping your program running smoothly and your stakeholders satisfied.

To ensure all stakeholders understand the updates in a diverse program, I'm using multiple communication techniques. This includes sending detailed email summaries, regular conference calls FAQ docs when appropriate. I'm also setting up a shared online space via Teams where stakeholders can access all documents and updates at their convenience. This approach ensures that everyone, regardless of their preferred communication style, stays informed and aligned.

Agenda, agenda, agenda.... This may not be a popular take, but a meeting without an agenda should probably not be a meeting. Agendas are a critical tool to keep meetings on topic and on schedule. It's so much easier to pull conversations back to the topic when the topics are already defined.

Data is hard to read in a paragraph form. Charts and graphs can take that information and turn it into something that is instantly recognizable to show trends and impacts. Using products like PowerBI and reporting tools built into modern PM software can give updates a higher level of professionalism and makes the data much easier to understand.

A few things you can do is to focus on: ?? creating feedback loops → after sharing an update, encourage questions → for example, send a quick email or create some dashboards → make things visible and transparent ?? using surveys and check-ins → use a Google Form after major updates to ask or have a casual chat during coffee breaks to gauge understanding (and write information down for future ref.) ?? tailoring communication → if some stakeholders prefer visuals, use charts in your presentations → for others, provide a concise email summary ?? clarifying and improving → take feedback seriously - if multiple people ask the same question, include that clarification in your next update to ensure everyone’s on the same page

Making sure everyone is using the same terms to mean the same thing from the start is critical. I like to keep a glossary of term on the project site that everyone has access to. Encourage the team to avoid overcomplicating the message with overly technical jargon. If techspeak is necessary, make sure that the terms are covered on the glossary and their use matches the definition there.