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Website DevelopmentCommunication Plan

Website Development Communication Plan

This is a practical guide to building a communication plan for a website development project — who gets what information, when, how and from whom, adapted to the realities of designing and building a new website.

What a Communication Plan is

A communication plan is who gets what information, when, how and from whom. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Communication Plan. On a website development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.

Why it matters for a Website Development project

Website Development projects live or die on designing and building a new website. A well-built communication plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how website development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.

What to include

  • Audiences
  • Messages / information needs
  • Frequency and channel
  • Owner

Website Development-specific considerations

Tailor the communication plan to the risks that most often derail website development projects:

  • Scope creep from stakeholder requests
  • Content readiness delays
  • Browser/device compatibility

Example

On a real website development project, the communication plan would be shaped by designing and building a new website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep from stakeholder requests, content readiness delays, browser/device compatibility — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.