Johannesburg, 27 Sep 2017
Does your project communication tend to be non-existent or leave your audiences with such ennui that it just died silently? Project newsletters can be so insipid and too many I have seen make me cringe because they are badly written and poorly constructed that no its wonder nobody reads them.
You can greatly improve your project communication by paying attention to these five elements
1. Make it compelling and specific
The people directly involved or directly impacted by the project want to know the key specifics on how things are going on the project and how this directly impacts them or benefits them. If the information comes across as too vague or verbose, you will lose the interest and credibility of your communication efforts. Keep your audiences in mind and ask yourself when writing it, what is in it for them?
2. Ensure it is current
As the content owner who puts the content together, you need to ensure before your communication goes out that your updates are still relevant and news worthy. If you are reporting old news, you lose wide scale interest immediately.
3. Make it appealing to read
While you don't want sensationalism, you also don't want your content to be so dry and difficult to read that no one bothers. You want to have a professional layout and where possible report your updates using imagery and iconography so your reporting is visual and easy on the eye.
4. Give eye catching highlights
Just like newspapers need eye-grabbing headlines to reel in the readers, you need to give your readers a taste of what they can expect in your communication by giving a compelling introduction that piques the reader's interest.
5. Add a personal touch
If you make use of a monthly project newsletter, don't just give project progress updates, go the extra mile and interview project members, whether it's the programme manager, sponsor, the project manager or a business analyst on the team and get their personal insights, ask them to share an anecdote or piece of advice or different perspective on the project or a theme that it's about to make it feel more personal and intriguing.