The RAF is the second largest service, employing 43,600 personnel that are involved in missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and other territories.

Ahead of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) that is likely to follow in the wake of the General Election in May 2010, the RAF is under increasing pressure to ensure that its external and internal communication activities are effective in getting across its messages to various stakeholder groups.

Design of the Training Workshop

We met several times with Group Captain Andrew Lewis, Chief of the Air Staff Projects. One of the key challenges we faced was the to deliver a strategic communications workshop that would appeal to the broad community of senior officers involved with engagement and communications within the RAF.

This large and varied group included Group and Wing Commanders, advisors to the Secretary of State for Defence, as well as those working in the MOD Press Office. Many senior officers within this group had substantial Media Ops and communication experience and some were completely new to this role. The differing levels of expertise and experience had to be managed within the training workshop.

Pre-workshop questionnaire

We designed the pre-workshop questionnaire with Group Captain Lewis which asked delegates to focus on three things they wanted to get from the training session, three things they would like to learn to do that would make their job easier and also asked them what they hoped to do better as a result of attending the training workshop. Getting this buy-in early on was going to be critical for the success of the training workshop.

Training requirements

With such a diverse group, requirements varied and so RAF and individual training requirements were segmented along the following areas:

1. Better understanding of how to get message/narrative across to diverse stakeholder groups and audiences

2. How to move from reactive to proactive communications management - and influence policy decisions

3. How to manage the flow of information internally (RAF/MoD) and externally (media)

4. Key elements of an Engagement Plan

5. Identifying appropriate channels to use to get messages to internal and external audiences

6. Measurement of communications - outputs and outcomes.

 

Delivery of the training

This was delivered at the Ministry of Defence, Whitehall and senior officers from the around the UK also attended.

We used a mixture of analysis/discussion, interactive voting techniques, scenario problem-solving that was appropriate to the RAF as well as a review of communication best practice.

 

Feedback from delegates

The feedback we received from delegates was overwhelmingly positive and idetified further training and development needs.

To read the testimonial from Group Captain Lewis, click on the thumbnail below. (To close, click on 'X' below the letter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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