Project Management
Communication
Email Updates
Often when delivering a project you need to communicate with a large group to get something done. Below is some guidance on how to structure the email to effectively do this.
Make sure the email subject is clear, and conveys the main message
Sections:
TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read)
Most people won’t read a huge email unless they know it’s important to them, help them make that decision
Summary
Gives context to what’s happening and why
Content
Bulk of the information you’re giving people. Name the section as something appropriate to the context
What do you (the email reader) need to do?
Important section that clarifies exactly what you expect people to do after reading the email
Contact
How people should people get in touch with you if they have any thoughts/concerns/issues
Project Progress
It’s often useful to have a high level document where interested stakeholders (managers, users) can check on the progress and get a sense of where you are. Depending on the organisation, this could come in a number of forms; JIRA, Excel/gSheet, presentation
Documentation / FAQ’s
Often people are not going to review an FAQ or documentation page themselves before asking for help, but you should not underestimate the amount of time you can save yourself by replying to a question with a link to documentation. It’s also a great opportunity to test the effectiveness of your documentation. If the questions you answer by linking to the documentation have followup questions after reading, perhaps the content can be improved in some way (e.g. add more info, or revise the structure)
Stakeholder engagement
Some users will actively engage with a project, while others won’t bother unless something critical for them comes up.
If you need some sort of sign-off from the less engaged users it can be challenging to get something explicit. Keep them informed, notify them of a date when something will happen without them, if anything becomes critical for them they will likely escalate it quickly and then you need to react quickly while you have there attention.