Transparency and Understanding of the Turnaround, Project or Maintenance Vision

Being involved with a team that is, in my opinion, in charge of empowering a major cultural shift I have found the most useful tools are honesty, a firm ethical foundation and transparency regarding the goal that will facilitate good relationships and confidence in our processes and vision.
It also has been my experience that any change that effects the current status-quo is subject to some anxiety and resistance.
With these things said, many organizations have a good idea of the challenges of Facility Maintenance, Turnarounds and Projects. However sometimes each functional group makes assumptions that we are all in the loop with the who, where, what and when things are being done. This is where developing a process to ensure clear common understanding and being of service. What does this mean… from the functional discipline perspective.
Although the thoughts below apply to Turnaround events it does not take much work to expand to Maintenance and Project environments.

Ensuring a clear and common understanding:

Making sure everyone has been presented with and know where to access the latest versions of the communications plan (stakeholders identified, Organizational Chart, roles & responsibilities, RASCI chart, contact list, distribution matrix) and how to use it.

Ensuring stakeholders whose scope was not included in the TA understand they will not receive scope from the TA group - example: Software Upgrade Project

Making sure all functional managers have the latest copy of the schedule
Ensuring managers receive Status Reports

Making sure stakeholders understand who is responsible for providing Schedule Activity updates, expected format, when and frequency.

Ensuring all divisions are required at the daily TA Progress Meeting to communicate support, critical tasks, forecasted high risk activities, safety events as outlined within the agenda.Being of Service:

Utilizing the Schedule and Daily TA Meeting to ensure stakeholders know about information that will affect them. Utilizing the Daily TA Meeting to provide a platform for the management of potential roadblocks Utilizing the Daily TA Meeting to review risks and develop options

Essentially from a high level effective changes require buy-in. Stakeholders need to be informed, introduced gradually into new changes, have some involvement and control. This requires a concerted effort from the team introducing the change.

There are considerable impacts of poor communication processes including, misunderstandings, assumptions and missed opportunities. The resulting consequences are realized through loss of productivity, rework and confidence. These factors precipitate when the Turnaround, Project or Maintenance function encounters budget, time, scope and quality losses.