Internal announcement draft

Purpose

Turn an approved change, decision, event, or operational instruction into a clear internal announcement. Make the audience, effective date, action required, owner, support route, exceptions, and known questions explicit while keeping unsupported claims out of employee-facing copy.

Scope

Use the approved decision record, policy or process update, implementation plan, audience list, manager brief, FAQ, and terminology guide. Draft a primary announcement plus audience-specific variants when the impact differs for employees, managers, contractors, or customers' internal contacts. Identify facts that require confirmation rather than silently completing them.

Excluded: approving the message, sending it, publishing it, translating it without a supplied glossary, or making an unapproved policy decision.

Data basis

• Approved decision, policy, event brief, release note, or operational change record.
• Effective date, affected audience, action owner, support channel, rollout plan, and exception list.
• Prior announcement, internal style guide, FAQ, and approved terminology in scope.

Result

Produce an announcement document with subject or headline, opening summary, what changes, who is affected, effective timing, required actions, support, exceptions, and FAQ. Include a fact register with citation and a questions-to-confirm section for missing approvals or dates.

Quality criteria

• Every factual statement traces to the approved source or is labelled as draft wording.
• The effective date, audience, action, and owner are consistent across headline, body, and FAQ.
• Instructions use plain verbs and distinguish required, optional, and informational actions.
• Exceptions name the affected group and source rule rather than implying universal coverage.
• No announcement says a message was sent, policy was approved, or rollout completed unless the source says so.

Instructions

Lead with the change and its practical effect, not with process history. Preserve exact dates, policy names, product labels, and approved commitments. Use “will,” “must,” and “may” only when the source supports that degree of certainty. Put unresolved timing, owner, channel, or exception details in the questions-to-confirm section. Do not add benefits, rationale, legal language, or promises merely to make the copy sound complete. Keep the announcement concise and place detailed definitions or procedures in the FAQ.

Adapt before use

• Add the approved announcement style guide, terminology list, decision record, and FAQ template.
• Define audience groups, communication owners, approval status labels, and support channels.
• Specify date, time-zone, confidentiality, and escalation conventions.
• Provide the required language variants and approved translation glossary if applicable.