Tiny Lesson: A postcard from the field

The close rapport you build up with the core project team is absolutely fundamental to this, but it’s critical to never underestimate the importance of keeping the wider stakeholder group informed and on board. On a recent project with a large corporate, I was reminded of the power of sending a weekly postcard. This can simply be circulated to stakeholders as a more approachable and shareable version of a status update.

The first postcard can be sent before the project actually starts to say hello, outline the scope and your key activities. After that, a typically weekly postcard provides a short snapshot of:

• Where you are in the overall programme plan
• The key activities that took part that week, along with the key insights and outcomes
• The activities to look forward to next week
• Key team members and contact details

I’d suggest keeping it deliberately short and sweet and where possible adding some photos and images to bring the project to life. I’d also suggest using a light-weight programme like Keynote or Powerpoint so as not to over-engineer it.

This technique is not new, in fact, I remember using it on a project over a decade ago, but with the recent move to more distributed teams it has made this weekly habit more useful than ever.

No longer are we able to have a war room in a clients office or put artefacts up on their walls as a permanent reminder that the project is happening. So a little visual snapshot arriving in their inbox at the end of each week can prove to be a helpful prompt.
During our roles mapping session at the beginning of the project, we allocate an individual involved in the project to be responsible for its creation each week, with input from the rest of the team of course. Once the format is created it can be completed in a very short space of time each week, literally a matter of minutes.

In my experience, this technique proves particularly useful when working for a large organisation with sprawling stakeholder groups. On occasion, it has triggered some pivotal stakeholders to get engaged with the project early on, which is always incredibly useful and can manage the risk of them getting involved too late on.

So why not give it a try on your next project?