 It's often times easy to underestimate the amount of communication that's needed. You know, we like to say that it takes five to seven touches to get a message across, and that really is true, and it's a matter of making sure that the sponsors focus on the vision and communicating why it's important. It's a matter of making sure that the people who need to be on the team understand what's in it for them. Establishing the right desire for improved processes and changing, dealing with the same old problems, changing that, and really providing more streamlined opportunities. And many people are resistant to that because it's change, and it's not easy and it's not comfortable for people to change. And so hearing that clear message is really important. And then having an awareness, understanding that it's the knowledge that they're going to need to function in the new environment and with new processes, having the confidence to do that, and again understanding that and being supported throughout the process. So those are the elements of communication that really need to occur, and I'll come back to the five to seven touches. It can't be communicated too much and it needs to be reinforced. And I find it's very easy when leaders are close to the situation. It's easy to lose track of the amount of communication that is needed. So it's really important. We've seen the greatest success come when sponsors, project managers, people involved communicate often and clearly and doing that across the campus so that it's understood what the impact to different parties. I'll come back to the admissions example we talked about earlier. That touches so many departments and people on the campus that all need to understand what the impact is going to be and what the benefits are for them. I think of communication as one-sided. I communicate to you or out, and I think too often IT is doing that. It's about a partnership. It's about building those individual conversations. It's about going and meeting and talking about what can enable business. If you think about it as I'm going to send out announcements or I'm just going to communicate, that's one-sided I mean as IT is talking down or talking to or at you. So key to the communication is sitting down and engaging as a partner in the institution. Part of the issue is that everyone needs to feel represented and well represented. So having some of this has to do with where you actually do the communication. So moving to a situation where those institutions that are not necessarily the largest or the strongest or have the most resources and have the communication occur there goes a long way to establishing a good relationship. Also leadership from the institutions that are not the obvious leaders I think provides a means of inclusion that you wouldn't otherwise have. For example in a system you may have a flagship or a large medical institution and having say it also includes community colleges having representation and leadership from key individuals in those community colleges may go a long way to helping the communication occur. And I think lastly the transparency of the process that you're involved in the communications that you're having things will inevitably happen that will cause complications and being open and honest about that. I think will provide the participants with a feeling of trust and again trust is the key factor in making the communications effective. To make cross institution communication successful you really have to start with a plan. When we say a plan we're talking about what are the various communication methodologies that you can leverage so that might be banners on your employee portal. It might be email probably is email to some extent but I think institutions in general over leverage email so you need to be careful. And so anyway all the different ways that you have to communicate and who are the resources that manage those methods and all of that. Then you're also looking at what do you need to communicate how do you communicate it methodology and when do you communicate it and also who is doing the communication. So that plan starts with the beginning of the project and moves forward to the end and so you have that in place. The next piece of that answer is bearing in mind change management methodologies. So with change management methodologies there are really a couple of key ideas takeaways from this. One is why are you doing this? You really need a mission and a vision for this project that is easily understood and can be communicated succinctly and also with images. Picture is truly worth a thousand words. It's been proved throughout history. We get an idea and we keep an idea faster if we have an image that is sort of demonstrating the concept. You need to leverage a couple of key types of resources in your communication strategy which is also your change management strategy. One is folks in the trenches who really believe in your mission and vision for this project for this process change. Those folks are singing from the same hymn as it were and they will help naysayers the rocks to some extent the sand throwers for sure understand on a continuous basis with that consistent message why it is you're doing what you're doing. What is the benefit? So in that plan that we talked about, that communication plan you really need to think about what's in it for the person who's being impacted by the process change and that succinct message that they're hearing consistently whoever that person is, whatever their role is will help move them off of the sand throwing place if that's where they're living right now. So those are the folks in the trenches. The other thing that we have seen be very, very successful and helpful for a positive outcome for any project at all is leadership communication. And I don't mean a little email that goes out to the troops, you know, thanks for whatever. I mean Moses coming down from the mountain, okay? And I say that like that because it's sort of how it feels. At one institution in particular I recall the provost, the title there was different, it was in England, but this leader came down from their office into the project office and spoke directly to the folks who were already experiencing some change fatigue because this thing had been going on for quite some time and really communicated the importance of what they were doing and how grateful they were for what they're doing because the other thing is that it's a lot of hard work. It's not just difficult because it's change, so you've got that, but it's also a lot of hard work. It's late nights and weekends. Sometimes, you know, folks are giving up their vacation in order to make this thing happen. That doesn't happen if they don't feel like what they're doing is truly important and appreciated. So having that leadership come down and speak directly to the troops from time to time throughout the project and just, you know, maybe remind them of the mission and the vision and also the appreciation of what they're doing, it really can go a long way to a positive outcome.