Digital

Communications and engagement – insights from the Technology Assurance Framework

March 4, 2026 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland

Guest blog by Anneka Davie, Continuous Improvement team, Digital Assurance Office.

The Digital Assurance Office (DAO), who administer the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF), share the lessons learned from major digital project reviews to support others to deliver more successful projects.

By analysing the recommendations from our major digital project reviews, we can identify common challenges. In 2024-25 communications and engagement was a dominant focus for recommendations from reviews.  You can catch up on previous DAO assurance insights on our blog.

Major digital project reviews

Between 2017-2018 and 2024-25, 277 major digital project reviews were completed under the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF), generating 2317 recommendations. 4% (94) of recommendations related to communications and engagement.  Whilst this is not a dominant area of focus for recommendations overall, it is a recommendation that features frequently, occurring in 30% of all reports.

The highest volume of communications and engagement recommendations are from reviews carried out in the earlier stages of a project.  These recommendations tend to focus on identifying stakeholders, putting in place a stakeholder engagement and communications strategy and developing plans to deliver the strategy.

Analysing all the recommendations made on communications and engagement identifies four themes. These themes are described below, alongside a summary of the recommendations made for improvement:

 Stakeholder mapping

• comprehensive stakeholder mapping to identify all relevant stakeholders and the engagement required
• be clear on the purpose of stakeholder engagement e.g. sharing key messages, supporting cooperation and partnership working, informing design, managing interdependencies

Communication and engagement strategies and plans

• develop or refresh stakeholder engagement and communications strategies, underpinned by comprehensive mapping
• underneath the strategy, put in place more detailed stakeholder engagement/management and communications plans, including when key project artefacts will be shared e.g. roadmaps, release plans
• develop targeted communication plans for specific phases (e.g. go‑live, procurement, delivery) and to support transition between phases
• support effective communication/engagement delivery through good governance with performance against stakeholder engagement and communications plans monitored and reported against
• ensure there is adequate skilled resource allocated to stakeholder engagement and communications and that this is maintained throughout the project life cycle
• use appropriate tools to engage stakeholders e.g. workshops to map and identify interdependencies, all staff forums for awareness, peer to peer engagement to build consensus
• provide feedback loops to demonstrate the impact of stakeholder engagement to the project

Expectation management and clear messaging

• use communications to set realistic expectations on scope, readiness and day‑one functionality
• communicate the benefits of the project and align the project to other strategies or plans in the organisation
• provide clear, consistent, targeted messaging to internal and external audiences supported by communication packs appropriate to the stage of the project, examples included service descriptions, onboarding materials, project plans, key milestones
• communicate risks, dependencies, and changes to scope/plans
• demonstrate senior‑level visibility and clear leadership endorsement to the project through planned communications

Sustained engagement throughout the delivery lifecycle

• treat engagement as continuous and two way activity throughout planning and delivery, with communications on an ongoing basis and at key milestones
• maintain business confidence through delivery with demonstrations and clear communications on outputs
• ahead of and following implementation establish effective communication to support pre and post implementation, examples include detailed information on the functionality of the system, desk instructions and any contingency measures

Examples of good practice

Review teams identified 47 examples of good communications and engagement practice from 39 projects. The highest number of good practice findings occurred at the delivery gate stage. The good practice identified included:

• clear and consistent communications
• structured stakeholder management with engagement built into project governance e.g. regular forums
• steady business engagement with regular, unambiguous updates
• engagement built from an ethos of openness and collaboration, with appropriate methods used depending on the purpose of the engagement
• targeted communications for major outputs
• effective cross organisational engagement

Support and further information

The Digital Assurance Office continues to share insights from assurance and collaborates with organisations who have undergone reviews to help others strengthen delivery practices. We have shared insights and case studies via the Digital blog. If you wish to contribute to our case studies or discuss areas of further exploration, contact: DigitalAssurance@gov.scot.

We have published insights on the other dominant themes from 2024-25 recommendations – invitation to tender and evaluation criteria; organisation and/or planning; resource requirements and/or capability and governance and project control

For further information and signposting to advice and support on programme and project management contact the Programme and Project Management Centre for Expertise or see their  PPM Framework and  Library, where their  stakeholder management toolkit may also be found.

The Scottish Government programme and project management principles are available and apply to any project of any size.

The Scottish Digital Academy is the public sector centre of expertise for digital capability and can provide information, advice and guidance on developing digital, data and technology skills to support transformation.

For expert guidance on delivering a digital project visit the Digital Scotland Service Manual

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Tags: Communications and engagement, Digital Assurance Office (DAO), Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS), Technology Assurance Framework

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