In practice, executing a communications plan may not be effective if innovative elements are not included in the process; that is, include other tools to capture the attention of internals and externals. some possibilities are the pictures or the graphs or other examples you offered. What I would like to know is what you use the most. Thanks for the interest. Saving Changes...
It always goes back to the information needs of your stakeholders. For some stakeholders, a low level of detail is required which can't be adequately presented using graphs or charts. For others, dashboards, charts, images and social media updates are sufficient.
Part of communication planning is understanding those needs and then picking the best delivery format to meet those for each key stakeholder.
And if you can leverage automation to publish required information to a portal where stakeholders can pull the level of detail they need, that's utopia...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Yolanda,
images, graphics and even press are not really innovative in my view. Even social media not, depending on what you really do (just posting to linkedin is quite old).
Innovation in communication has been seen with the widespread use of virtual meetings and will be seen more with the use of AI. As an example, PMI now uses Sembly AI to create meeting minutes or others use Perflo to understand team problems early.
Beyond that, we will use people / stakeholder analysis techniques and influencing techniques more. As example, gamification of teams along the octalysis framework will create cohesion and engagement, SCARF framework will build trust and positive mood or just storytelling will make people listen better. All of these are known since at least 10 years, rarely used in projects, but highly effective to make communication stick. Saving Changes...
Pictures and graphics are extremely useful, but I would agree they're often not very innovative. Sometimes simple is better.
More and more I am seeing use of interactive computer models being adopted. For a relatable example, you might have a 3D model of a house for where you can navigate through the house under construction and select items of interest. Select the kitchen and you can find the planned work, completed work, problems encountered, parts on order, and a variety of other useful information through links to various data sources.
With external stakeholders, be careful that they have the capabilities to use the new innovative tools however. Sending your client a file type that they can't even open will turn an impressive presentation into a frustrating experience. Saving Changes...
