Communication guidelines: who can publish straight away and what needs approval

Communication guidelines are a short, written set of rules: which content the team can publish straight away, which needs approval, who approves it and how quickly. Well-defined rules shorten the path from material to customer, because most decisions have already been made.

What are communication guidelines?

Communication guidelines are advance consent for most everyday decisions, so that only what really needs it gets approved.

In many companies every piece of material waits for approval from the same person, whether it is a holiday greeting post or a proposal for a key client. As a result, simple things queue up and important ones get lost in the pile. Communication guidelines solve this by dividing content into categories and assigning clear rules to each:

• content published straight away: without approval, within agreed limits, for example answers to typical questions or event coverage,
• content with one approval: checked by one designated person, for example proposals and sales materials,
• sensitive content: announcements about prices, changes in the company, legal and crisis matters, with a defined path and decision-makers.

How do we set communication guidelines?

1. We check how it works today. We gather the types of content the company publishes and sends, and track who approves them today and how long it takes.
2. We divide content into categories. Together with you we decide what can go out straight away, what needs approval and where the limits of each category are.
3. We assign responsibility and timing. For each category we name the approver, a deputy for absences and the maximum response time.
4. We write it down and roll it out. We prepare a short document, walk the team through it and, after a month, check what needs adjusting.

What do you get?

• a communication guidelines document with content divided into categories and people assigned,
• a list of sensitive situations describing what to do and whom to inform,
• a simple "who, what, how fast" table to pin in the team's tool,
• a review after the first month and adjustment of the rules to practice.

When is it worth writing down communication guidelines?

• when materials wait longer for approval than they took to prepare,
• when the team does not know whether it may publish something and asks just in case,
• when something was published that should not have been,
• when communication is handled by several people, branches or external contractors.

Frequently asked questions