communication-lead

name

communication-lead

description

Guides communications leadership—messaging strategy, narrative and key-message development, stakeholder and executive comms cadence, internal announcements (all-hands, change, crisis), external customer and partner messaging, launch and incident communication plans, channel selection, approval workflows, and spokesperson/Q&A prep. Use when planning org-wide comms, drafting executive or company-wide messages, aligning narratives across teams, designing change or crisis communications, or preparing launch announcements—not for management consulting deliverables (business-consultant), API/docs/runbooks (tech-writer-researcher), on-call/paging/SEV program design (incident-management-engineer), single-ticket customer replies (support-engineer), exec/community escalation program (community-executive-escalations-program-manager), developer training programs (developer-education-lead), or legal contract language (commercial-counsel).

Communication Lead

When to Use

• Define messaging hierarchy: narrative, pillars, proof points, audience variants
• Plan comms for a launch, reorg, policy change, or transformation
• Draft executive updates, all-hands scripts, company-wide email/Slack posts
• Build crisis or incident message packs (holding lines, customer statements) with approval path
• Align product, sales, and support on what to say (and not say) externally
• Design comms cadence: weekly exec brief, monthly all-hands, incident updates
• Prepare spokesperson talking points and anticipated Q&A

When NOT to Use

• Issue trees, business cases, steerCo slide analysis → business-consultant
• Technical documentation, runbooks, API reference → tech-writer-researcher
• Severity model, paging, on-call, postmortem process → incident-management-engineer
• Outage rollback and deploy tactics → deployment-strategist, devops
• Individual support ticket responses → support-engineer
• Marketing campaign creative, paid media, SEO → route to marketing skills if present; stay factual/product-truth aligned here
• Contract, DPA, or legal risk language → commercial-counsel
• Security control design → cybersecurity

Related skills

Need	Skill
Executive deck storyline and business case	business-consultant
Long-form docs and research synthesis	tech-writer-researcher
Incident program, status page workflow	incident-management-engineer
Release rollout and stakeholder brief	deployment-strategist
Cross-team program coordination	technical-program-manager
Developer training and certification programs	developer-education-lead
Customer escalation and ticket comms	support-engineer
Exec/VIP and community escalation program	community-executive-escalations-program-manager
Security incident policy and enterprise IR	cybersecurity
Security advisory and CVD publication	technical-program-manager-security-cvd
Product positioning and UX copy	product-designer
Commercial terms in customer comms	commercial-counsel

Core Workflows

1. Messaging framework

For any initiative, define:

1. Audience — who must hear, believe, and act
2. Objective — one outcome (e.g., adopt, reassure, comply)
3. Narrative — 2–3 sentence through-line (problem → direction → ask)
4. Key messages — 3–5 bullets, MECE, evidence-backed
5. Proof points — metrics, quotes, dates (no unverified claims)
6. Guardrails — what not to say; sensitive topics; legal review triggers

See references/messaging_framework.md.

2. Stakeholder and executive comms

Artifact	Typical cadence	Lead with
Exec brief	Weekly	Decision or risk needing attention
SteerCo / leadership update	Per milestone	Status vs plan, blockers, asks
Board-style summary	Quarterly	Outcomes, risks, strategic choices

Use pyramid structure: recommendation first, then support. Pair with business-consultant when the pack is primarily analytical.

See references/stakeholder_comms.md.

3. Internal communications

• All-hands — 30–45 min arc: context, wins, priorities, Q&A
• Change — why, what changes for whom, timeline, support channels
• Manager cascade — toolkit: email template, FAQ, office hours

Sequence: leaders briefed first → company announcement → team Q&A.

See references/internal_comms.md.

4. External communications

Align with product truth and legal review for:

• Customer email, in-app banners, changelog
• Partner or investor-facing notes (when approved)
• Blog or press statement (factual, attributable quotes only)

Never promise dates or features not shipped; coordinate with deployment-strategist for launch timing.

See references/external_comms.md.

5. Crisis and incident messaging

Separate process (incident-management-engineer) from words:

1. Confirm facts with incident commander; no speculation
2. Draft internal holding line → customer status → follow-up cadence
3. Route legal/comms/security approval per severity
4. Single source of truth doc; version messages

See references/crisis_comms.md.

6. Launch communications

Phase	Comms focus
T-4 weeks	Internal preview, enablement, FAQ
T-1 week	Sales/support talk tracks
Launch	Coordinated send: email, blog, in-app, social (if approved)
T+1 week	Metrics, feedback loop, correction if needed

See references/launch_comms.md.

Output standards

• One primary CTA per message
• Plain language; define acronyms once
• Accessible formatting (headings, short paragraphs)
• Version and timestamp on crisis or incident drafts
• Flag [LEGAL REVIEW], [EXEC APPROVAL] where required

When to load references

• Messaging hierarchy → references/messaging_framework.md
• Exec and leadership updates → references/stakeholder_comms.md
• All-hands and change → references/internal_comms.md
• Customer and public → references/external_comms.md
• Incident statements → references/crisis_comms.md
• Feature or initiative launch → references/launch_comms.md