Draft a change-management communications plan

Step 1: List the stakeholder groups and what each one needs to hearWord

Make an actual two-column list in the Word doc — group name, then their specific concern.

Rather than a single mental note of "executives, managers, frontline." Executives generally care about the business rationale and timeline, managers about how to answer their team's questions, and frontline staff about what changes in their day-to-day; naming these differences explicitly is what step 2's prompt needs to tailor each message properly.

Step 2: Ask Copilot to draft the planCopilotChatGPTClaude

Give it the change itself and the stakeholder list, and ask for tailored messaging per group plus a rollout sequence.

Prompt idea:

Draft a change-management communications plan for moving from [old process] to [new process]. For each stakeholder group — executives, people managers, frontline staff — write the key message they need to hear and note when in the rollout timeline it should go out.

Step 3: Sequence the rollout deliberatelyWord

Managers usually need to hear the message before their teams do, so they're not caught off guard — check the sequence reflects that.

Step 4: Get manager buy-in before broad rolloutWord

A change plan lands better when managers can answer questions before their team asks, not after.

Check the work

• Confirm the rollout sequence gives managers a head start before their teams are told.
• Check that each stakeholder group's message actually addresses their specific concern, not a generic version.
• Verify the timeline is realistic given how the change is actually being implemented.

Source: Microsoft Copilot Scenario Library — Operations (2026)