What should an internal communication plan include?

Four columns cover most teams: the audience (which team or level), the purpose (what they need to know or decide), the channel (meeting, email, chat, instance), and the owner with a frequency. If a row has no owner, the update will not happen.

How is an internal communication plan different from an internal communication tool?

The plan says what should flow and who owns it. A tool is where it actually happens. Most teams write the plan once and then need a system that keeps the ownership and routing alive day to day.

How often should an internal communication plan be reviewed?

Quarterly, and whenever the structure changes — a new team, a new site, a new shift pattern. A plan that names a channel nobody checks is worse than no plan, because everyone assumes the message landed.

Internal communication plan template

Map who needs to hear what, through which channel, from whom, and how often. Free, runs entirely in your browser, and exports as a spreadsheet. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

Audience	Purpose	Channel	Owner	Frequency

Gap check

Every audience has a channel, an owner and a frequency — the minimum a communication plan needs to actually run.

What goes in an internal communication plan

Audiences, not everyone. The night shift and the sales team need different things — list them separately.
A purpose per row. "Keep people informed" is not a purpose. "Client answers that used to take two days" is.
One owner per row. A shared update is an unsent update.
A realistic frequency. Daily newsletters become weekly, then never. Pick a cadence the owner can keep.

Where plans usually break

The plan covers broadcasts, not questions. Most internal friction is someone asking "who handles this?" — that needs routing, not a newsletter.
Channels multiply. If the plan names five places to look, people check none of them.
Nobody owns the plan. Review it quarterly, or the first reorg makes it fiction.

Common questions

What is an internal communication plan?

A one-page map of who needs to hear what, through which channel, from whom, and how often — so updates do not depend on whoever happens to remember.

How is this different from an internal communication tool?

The plan says what should flow and who owns it. A tool is where it happens. CRACTT is the layer that routes the day-to-day questions the plan cannot predict.

How often should we review the plan?

Quarterly, and whenever the structure changes — a new team, site or shift pattern.

Is anything I type here saved?

No. This template runs entirely in your browser. Export the spreadsheet if you want to keep it.

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