Stakeholder Communication Plan

---
name: stakeholder-communication-plan
description: "Builds a stakeholder communication plan by segmenting audiences on the power/interest grid and mapping each segment's position on the ADKAR change curve, defining objective, message, channel, cadence, and owner per segment. Use when a change effort needs more than a generic \"keep stakeholders informed\" line and different groups actually need different messages."
---

# Stakeholder Communication Plan

## Purpose

Builds a communication plan for different stakeholders during a change.

## Anchored in research

- LinkedIn Skills on the Rise 2026 — Executive & Stakeholder Communication
- Hiatt, Jeff / Prosci — the ADKAR model (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge,
  Ability, Reinforcement): communication objectives shift over the course of
  a change effort, and a message that's right for building Awareness is the
  wrong message for driving Reinforcement.
- Mendelow (1991) — the Power/Interest stakeholder grid, used to decide the
  intensity and directness of communication for each stakeholder segment.

## Method

1. **Segment stakeholders by power and interest** (Mendelow) — this
   determines communication intensity and directness per group, not just who
   gets an email versus who gets a meeting.
2. **Map each segment's current position on the ADKAR curve** (Awareness →
   Desire → Knowledge → Ability → Reinforcement). A stakeholder who isn't yet
   aware of the change needs a different message than one who already knows
   about it but hasn't bought in.
3. **Define, per segment: objective, key message, channel, cadence, and
   owner.** The objective should be the specific ADKAR gap that segment is
   at (build awareness / build desire / build ability / etc.), not a generic
   "keep informed."
4. **Sequence the messages against the change timeline** — early messages
   build awareness and the case for change; messages closer to go-live shift
   toward ability and readiness; post-go-live messages reinforce the change
   and prevent backsliding.
5. **Build in a feedback loop per segment** — a way for the message to
   travel back (Q&A, a pulse survey, sponsor office hours), not just
   outward broadcast. A plan with no return channel can't detect resistance
   early.
6. **Name a single owner per message-channel pair** who is accountable for
   it actually going out — a plan nobody owns doesn't get executed.

## What this skill does NOT do

- Doesn't make the final decision for you — it produces a structured draft to
  support a human decision.
- Doesn't confirm figures, market data, or competitor data from memory — it
  uses the inputs you provide, or marks an assumption clearly
  (`[assumption — verify]`).
- Doesn't execute the communication for you — it produces the plan and the
  message framework.

## Refinement notes

Areas to keep deepening with real practice:

- your own rules of thumb and heuristics for this technique
- concrete templates (into [`../../references/`](../../references/))
- reference cases / your own examples
- what this skill deliberately does *not* do (guardrails, common mistakes) —
  add to the list above

This is an internal working note, not a claim about the skill's current
usability. Track depth privately via the `maturity` field in
`skills_index.json` (see
[`../../../meta/maturity_levels.md`](../../../meta/maturity_levels.md)).
**Don't add new fields to the frontmatter** — `name` and `description` are
the only ones allowed (see
[`../../../meta/frontmatter_schema.md`](../../../meta/frontmatter_schema.md)).

## Continue from here

- Next in this pack: [`../workshop-and-facilitation-design/SKILL.md`](../workshop-and-facilitation-design/SKILL.md) — Designs the structure of a cross-functional workshop or design-thinking session.
- Before this, for a single high-stakes decision-maker: [`../stakeholder-pressure-and-information-gap-mapping/SKILL.md`](../stakeholder-pressure-and-information-gap-mapping/SKILL.md)
  — this skill segments and sequences messaging across a change
  timeline; that skill closes the information gap with one specific
  decision-maker before a pitch or business case is written.
- A ready-made skill chain for this situation: see [`../../../playbooks/`](../../../playbooks/)
- This pack's shared guardrails: [`../../CLAUDE.md`](../../CLAUDE.md)

## References

- [`../../references/`](../../references/) — the pack's shared background material
- [`../../CLAUDE.md`](../../CLAUDE.md) — the pack's shared guardrails