Gunjan Doshi

Startups, Entrepreneurship, Agility, Management & Leadership, Metrics

“5W” framework of communication

July 11th, 2008 by gunjandoshi

One of the issues that start-ups struggle is with issue of communication break-down. As the organization grows, communication goes from “every-one knows everything” to “why was I not told about this?”. One rule of thumb that I suggest to the decision-makers is use the “5W” approach of communication. Any time a decision is made, use the following 5Ws to communicate:

  • What / Why: What are you communicating and why are you communicating? This will be the content of your communication.
  • Whom: Whom should your address the communication to? Should you communicate to specific individuals or groups or the whole company?
  • Who: Who should communicate the message? Am I the right person to communicate the message?
  • When: When is the right time to communicate? When also refers to the frequency of communication. Some messages may need multiple reminders.
  • Where: Where do you communicate the message? Do you do it in a town-hall meetings or in person meeting or via email?

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