Communications Plan

There is a draft Communications Plan (attached to this page) that covers how information moves around. This plan is wide open for discussion and improvement.

A key organizational feature of the Plan is to defer actual details to pages on Confluence. So we will create pages for each of the Topics named below, or whatever topics end up in the final plan, and those pages can be updated as needed to reflect how we are actually doing communications on the project.

Principals of Communications

• Project staff should expect and pursue effective communications on the project, with support from project management.
• Project participants share responsibility for effective communications.
• Project management is committed to open and transparent decision-making to resolve technical concerns.
• Communication tools and techniques on the project should facilitate conflict resolution and information exchange.
• Communication systems should be integrated with work activities to the maximum extent possible.
• Information exchange should not be excessive or intrusive, distracting personnel from their activities.
• Real-time (always-updated) and automated collaboration, exchange, and dissemination tools should be strongly favored over static and manually-generated products.

Topics in Communication Plan

• Software Activity Documentation
• Software Development Environment
• Individual and Team Status Updates
• Individual and Team News Feeds
• Collaborative Support
• New Media
• Co-Design + Co-Development
• Real-time Document Collaborations
• Meetings and Notifications
• Team-Building Activities
• Teleconferencing and Video Conferencing
• Confluence Site Practices
• Roll-up, Consolidation, and Re-use of Documentation
• Verbal Communications (One or Many)
• Metrics