Problem to be solved:
Stressed workflows during crunch times. Messaging that didn't land or accurately reflect the organization’s culture, brand, and quality of programming. Missed deadlines on key communications pieces throughout the year. Missed opportunities to further organizational goals that the team wanted to be better prepared to take advantage of.
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This after school arts nonprofit serving kids in seven New York City schools contracted me to lead a collaborative design process to create their first ever communications calendar.
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Not only were we able to solve for aspects of the problem at hand by co-designing the organization’s first basic messaging strategy and communication’s calendar, but doing so equipped the client with a valuable tool to assist their team in measuring key metrics and assessing performance of various communications pieces at the end of each year, so the team could iterate their strategy toward improved results for each year ahead.
Research, prototype testing, and iteration:
I conducted 1:1 interviews with the CEO and department heads, incorporated the insights gleaned, and followed up with testing and iteration in group meetings with the CEO and her management team.
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Initial Research Questions for SME interviews:
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What communications pieces are you currently involved in developing and/or launching throughout the year?
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What supplementary documents do you develop that might accompany those communications?
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Please answer the following questions related to each existing communications piece:
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What format(s) do you use to create this communication?
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What channel(s) do you use to disseminate it?
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Who are the audiences for this communication?
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During which weeks of the year is this communication typically launched?
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How many weeks in total does the team use to create, review, edit and approve this communication prior to launching?
Solution:
Taking both functionality and budget into account, we settled on a color-coded collapsible Excel spreadsheet as the format for the calendar, giving Serious Fun’s team, for the first time ever, the ability know at a glance how busy any particular week of the year would be, with the ability to drill down into specific communication tasks for every week of the year by department.
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Synthesized:
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Aggregated SME interview responses into Excel timeline chart template
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Incorporated multiple rounds of qualitative feedback from group discussions
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Reorganized and customized communications categories to best suit client’s needs
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Listed communications in each category in chronological order, and made subgroups to be collapsed for visual ease
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Transitioned draft into client’s chosen software application, and presented for review and approval
