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How to Use This Worksheet
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This communication plan worksheet maps the people connected to each initiative you are moving forward and sets a meeting rhythm with each of them, one that keeps everyone informed while keeping in mind your overall calendar of commitments. It is one of the three tools in the Project Prioritization Toolkit. Anything sitting in the top half of your Cost vs Impact Matrix should have at least one stakeholder listed here.
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Filling It In
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•One row is one standing conversation, not one person and not one initiative. If a stakeholder touches three initiatives and you meet with them once, that is a single row. Two separate meetings on two separate days get two rows.
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•Stakeholder Type changes how you communicate, not just how you sort. A senior leader wants the headline in the first thirty seconds. A support team wants the detail. A business partner wants to know what you need from them and when.
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•D.A.R.T. is a dropdown, and it colors itself. Pick the category the conversation is mostly about and the cell takes on that color, the same colors used for the Ref numbers on the D.A.R.T. worksheet and the bubbles on the matrix.
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•Related Initiative(s) is free text, and it accepts more than one. Lead with the reference number from your D.A.R.T. worksheet. When a single conversation covers two initiatives, enter both: R1, D2. Keep your initiative list on the Lists tab to copy from.
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•Frequency is a negotiation, not a decision you make alone. Some stakeholders want a short conversation every two weeks. Others are fine with monthly or quarterly. Owner is whoever runs the meeting, which is not always you.
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•Notes is where you record what this person needs from you. What they care about, what they want to see ahead of time, the question they ask every single meeting.
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Adding Rows and Sorting
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•Every header has a filter button. Sort by Stakeholder Type to prepare a round of senior leader updates. Sort by D.A.R.T. to see whether one category is quietly consuming all your attention. Row numbers renumber themselves afterward.
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•Need more than fifty rows? Copy an existing row rather than inserting a blank one: click its row number, press Ctrl+C or Command+C, then right-click the row number where you want it and choose Insert Copied Cells. A blank inserted row picks up the striping and dropdowns but not the row-number formula.
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•The strip above the table counts your commitments and converts them into meetings and hours per month. Look at that number before you add another row. Fourteen stakeholders at weekly is fourteen hours a month gone.
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Making It Work
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•When there is nothing meaningful to report, offer to cancel ahead of time. People appreciate it, and it keeps these conversations useful rather than turning them into another calendar item nobody values.
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•Add the meetings you did not initiate. Standing conversations with key partners belong on this list even when someone else called them, since the point is a complete picture of who you are staying aligned with.
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•Expect the conversations to improve the work, not just protect it. Share an initiative with another department and you sometimes find they are already halfway toward the same goal, or that someone down the hall has done it before and can save you months.
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Printing and Sharing
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•White cells are yours to fill in. Fifty rows, which runs to about three landscape pages. The column headers repeat at the top of each.
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•The Example tab maps ten stakeholders to the initiatives used in the D.A.R.T. worksheet example. Delete that tab before sharing if you would rather present a clean sheet.
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•The dropdown lists live on the Lists tab, alongside a place to keep your initiative list. Overwrite any of it to match the language your organization already uses.
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Part of the Project Prioritization Toolkit
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Access all three tools, plus the full process behind them, at https://www.leadership-tools.com/how-to-prioritize-work-projects.html
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