Communication Strategy
- Christopher Farmer
- Feb 17
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 19
During a graduate course at Northern Arizona University, I managed a team of remote writers editing technical content for the iFixit website. While coordinating this team, I learned first-hand how important communication strategy is to team success.
I learned that whether you’re collaborating with a group of writers under the same roof or coordinating with a remote team over great distances, you must ensure your team knows what you need from them.
A good communication strategy is the foundation of any good team. Let’s examine communication strategy through four simple steps:
Choose your channels—decide how you will communicate.
Build a schedule—determine when you will communicate.
Establish boundaries and expectations—for yourself and your team.
Listen—to understand your team.
Choose Your Channels
Before you do anything else, decide how you will communicate. Your methods will depend on factors such as project deadlines and complexity, whether you are using remote teams, and the urgency of your communication.
Methods of digital communication can include:
Email
Cell phone—text messages or conference calls
The size of your team, whether you require video or text, and what works best for your unique project team, will determine the best choice. And that best choice might change from project to project.
Deciding between synchronous and asynchronous communication is another concern. In an article titled Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Communication: How to Find the Right Balance for Your Team, Jason Evanish, the CEO of Get Lighthouse, Inc. notes that context determines which method is best.
Synchronous communication occurs in real time, while asynchronous communication occurs with a delay—such as a conversation via email, in which two parties take hours (or days) to respond to each other.
In the article noted above, Jason Evanish defined some factors that can guide you as you determine the type of communication needed for your project. He wrote that you should consider:
How urgent is your communication?
How detailed does the communication need to be?
Where is the recipient located and what is their schedule?
How complex is the subject?
How many people are you communicating with?
What is the purpose of your communication?
Consider the above questions as you decide what communication channel works best for your project.
Build a Schedule
Now that you’ve defined how you’re going to communicate, it’s time to decide when you’re going to communicate. Do you need a daily meeting? Are weekly Zoom conferences enough? Do some employees require in-person meetings?
Different team members have different needs. If you are managing a team in an office, where everyone works the same hours, it might be easy to have weekly or daily meetings. That environment also lends itself well to as required one-on-one meetings. However, you might deal with a group of remote team members.
I built my communication schedule around the deadlines of our project. Below is a project schedule that I created.
In the schedule, I overlapped some dates for different project stages based on our deadlines. For example, on February 2nd we had a team meeting to review our editing drafts prior to submission—at that same meeting I planned to assign team roles for SEO Stage 2.
iFixit Project Stages | Deadlines for the team to send their work All deadlines are 1159 pm | Deadlines for me to send final materials to iFixit |
Proposals for all five projects (Editingx2, SEOx2, and Fast Fix1) | January 18 (projects identified) January 19 (team meeting) January 19 (team roles assigned) January 25 (submit work to TL) | January 27 |
Editing Drafts Submission | January 22 (team roles assigned) January 31 (submit work to TL) February 02 (team meeting) | February 3 |
Editing Finals Submission | February 07 (work due to TL) February 09 (team meeting) | February 10 |
SEO Stage 2 | February 02 (team roles assigned) February 07 (work due to TL) February 09 (team meeting) | February 10 |
SEO Final Submission | February 10 (first draft to TL) February 12 (team meeting) February 14 (final draft to TL) February 16 (team meeting) | February 17 |
Fast Fix Checkpoint 1 | February 09 (roles assigned) February 14 (work due to TL) February 16 (team meeting) | February 17 |
Fast Fix Checkpoint 2 | February 21 (work due to TL) February 23 (team meeting) | February 24 |
Fast Fix Final Submission | February 24 (first draft to TL) February 26 (team meeting) February 28 (final draft to TL) March 02 (team meeting) | March 3 |
We scheduled weekly Zoom meetings around our deadlines so that we could address concerns and plan for the following week’s requirements.
Schedules need to be flexible, even when deadlines aren’t. We quickly learned that, based on our project’s requirements and our ability to communicate via email, we didn’t need all those Zoom meetings. So, we canceled the meetings we didn’t need.
With a different team, we might have needed to increase the frequency of our meetings…
Build your communication schedule around your deadlines and then be prepared to change it. Deadlines will drive your meeting schedule. But so will the abilities of your team.
Support your team members by building your communication schedule around their needs. But, respect their time, and don’t schedule more meetings than they need.
Establish Boundaries and Expectations
Boundaries can include:
Communicating only during certain days or hours
Setting phone and email limits
Observing preferred communication styles
Respecting personal space
Limiting intrusions on private time
Expectations can include:
Being on time
Meeting deadlines
Responding to communications
Staying professional
Offering support
Setting and adhering to these boundaries and expectations when your team forms and as your project moves forward may reduce the conflicts that will occur because of every team member’s unique personality.
Listen
Listening is an important skill for anyone leading a team. Feedback from your team members will let you know if your communication is effective. And, when you listen, it helps you to give your team members relevant feedback.
Strategies can include:
Asking open-ended questions
Supporting your team by being available and approachable
Encouraging team members to give feedback
Asking team members to explain if you don’t understand something
Valuing everyone’s point of view
Observing people’s actions
During our project, I learned that different people have different needs, and communication often needs to be tailored to the individual. One team member required more detailed information about my expectations. Another felt overwhelmed by the amount of information I was giving. A different team member was struggling with conflicting responsibilities and required constant reminders to meet deadlines.
Different team members have different needs.
Listening is required for communication to be effective. If you aren’t making time to engage with your team members individually, then it is unlikely that you are meeting their needs.
Communicate with your team. Listen to your team members. One-on-one communication is an important aspect of an effective communication strategy.
Creating a communication strategy isn’t only about deciding how you will communicate.
It involves setting boundaries and expectations for your team members. It also involves making a commitment to understanding their needs, so that ultimately, you can help them support your needs.
This blog discussed communicating with your team. Please check out the links below to my other blog entries, Managing Your Team and Managing Your Writing Project, to learn more.
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