Complete the communications plan – Google Apps for Work User Manual
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Change Management Guide
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Phase 1: Core IT
Complete the communications plan
Time frame: Weeks 1–2
What and why: A communication plan is important for organizing all
the messages your users will receive about the project. You want to
clearly identify:
•
Who will receive this message?
•
What is the topic for this message? What are the most memorable
key points?
•
When will the message be distributed? How hierarchical is your
company? Should you release your messages in a time-staggered
fashion, starting with influentials and then percolating down to
the grassroots level?
•
How will we communicate this change? What channels should we
use? Email, posters, company intranet? If we are using email, who
is the sender? Should the sender be different for different
audiences?
Organizing all this information in one place provides a complete view
of your users’ information experience for the transition. It helps
ensure that you aren’t overusing one particular channel, or
overwhelming a particular user group with too many messages about
the switch to Google Apps.
The result: You’ll have completed a communications plan identifying
each message or event that will be needed for your Google Apps
deployment. You can use this plan to set the direction for all your
communications activities for the rest of your Google Apps
deployment.
“With help from Google Apps partner
Cima Solutions Group, we migrated
email from the in-house server, trained
1,600 users, and got everyone
operational within several months.”
—Jim Lamb, Director of Computer
Services, Ebby Halliday Realtors
Ebby Halliday Realtors is a real estate