Communicating futures

Communication is critical to the success of futures projects. Good and regular communication throughout the project ensures that information is exchanged efficiently and effectively and that the project runs smoothly overall.

Communication is also critical after the futures project has been completed, when the areas of review, context, action and production become important.

Review

Before communicating anything, check that all of the materials have been reviewed and that all of the analysis is accounted for. Consider what should be communicated and when. It is all too easy for one or two exciting messages to start to gain significant broadcast time, while other material lies largely unnoticed.

Be sure to test your communication plans with your stakeholders and sponsor. Firstly, they contributed to the project and deserve as much. Secondly, they may be able to provide qualitative contributions.

Context

Set the context for the completed study. This is at least in the form of a process review, but also as a story to be remembered. Recall the original intention of the project. To do this effectively, you may have to step away from the deeper knowledge that you gained from the project.

How has the project addressed the original intention? Did it address this differently at various stages? How has the intent changed, if at all? Has the project tested or possibly altered any original assumptions?

Action

In many ways the hard work has just begun! Futures projects should be the beginning of strategy building – not the end result. The task now is to get people in your organisation to use the futures information that you have created.

How will you get the new information into the heads of strategic decision-makers and policy workers? Is there an action plan where you have identified important next steps? If not, why not, and can you help to put one in place?

Action plans not only get the serious job of strategy building on track, they enhance any communication effort. In addition to an action plan, have you set a project review period? This will be important to share key messages and to ensure that your next futures project runs even more smoothly.

The role of a wider audience - which may include the general public - is also important in achieving action. A wider circulation of the material could provide indications of current opinions.

You should consider the benefits of creating a dedicated web site not only to communicate the project's output, but also to continue conversation of the topic among a networked community.

Preserving relationships that formed during futures workshops can be important both to the project's team and its stakeholders. Here it is important not to force people into communicating but to nurture a group that wants to communicate and stay in touch. The community will let you know what the difference is (see Folksonomies).

Production

The production of communication materials is, let's face it, probably not your first consideration when starting a futures project. It should be. Communications can be an expensive endeavour and getting it wrong can cause a lot more harm than the cost of reprinting can offset.

Whatever you produce as communications material, the quality has to be good enough to entice target users to explore it. Always ensure that the communications effort is very user friendly, whatever media you employ. Above all the messages should be engaging and absolutely representative of the findings of the project.

Think about the stakeholders and target users. What method of communication is best for each segment? How long will it take to produce the material, or more likely, how much time will you be given? Should you recruit professional communicators in the same way that you brought in professional facilitators?

Launch events are a nice touch when you have completed an extended futures project. If you use a launch event approach, how will it differ from other launches and what will you do to maintain momentum afterwards?

A last word

Communicating the futures exercise is, in many ways, what all of this is about. It will get the message out, stir action and raise the profile of the key issues. Most importantly, communications will get the futures thinking that you’ve worked so hard to capture, into the hearts and minds of people who can make decisions today that affect our lives tomorrow.