Building a communication strategy for platform engineering teams

Picture this: Your platform engineering team has spent months perfecting an internal solution that dramatically reduces deployment times and eliminates configuration errors. Yet three months after launch, adoption remains disappointingly low. The culprit? Not technical shortcomings but communication gaps.

Even the most powerful internal developer platform will fail without effective communication. I consistently see technically sound platforms struggling with adoption because potential users don’t understand their value or how to use them.

Your platform’s technical excellence means nothing if engineers don’t adopt it or leadership doesn’t fund its continuous improvement. Strategic communication bridges the gap between platform capability and business impact, transforming your technical innovation into measurable value that resonates with developers and executives.

Crafting effective rollout communications

Before diving into ongoing communication channels, we must address a crucial moment: your platform’s initial launch. Whether you’re communicating through email, Slack, or a real-time presentation, how you introduce your platform sets the foundation for adoption and engagement.

Start with the “why” behind your platform. Engineers are naturally skeptical of new tools that appear to add complexity. Your communications should clearly explain how the platform reduces cognitive load, minimizes context switching, improves documentation access, and enables faster development cycles. Frame benefits as concrete improvements to daily workflows rather than abstract concepts. For example, highlight how automating environment setup can save each developer 5-7 hours weekly instead of simply claiming “increased productivity.”

Anticipate and address resistance points proactively. Engineers often worry about how new platforms integrate with their preferred tools or disrupt established workflows. Your communications should acknowledge these concerns directly and explain integration capabilities, migration paths, and support options. Consider creating an FAQ document that addresses common objections before they arise. Being transparent about current limitations while sharing your roadmap builds credibility and sets appropriate expectations.

Recruit platform champions to amplify your message. Identify respected technical colleagues who contributed to the platform’s development or successfully used early versions. Their authentic endorsements carry significantly more weight than official communications alone. Create opportunities for these champions to demonstrate the platform’s capabilities through lightning talks, recorded demos, or pair programming sessions. These peer-to-peer interactions allow potential users to see practical applications and ask candid questions in a low-pressure environment.

Once you’ve launched the platform, you’ll need to keep the communication with your users open. Let’s explore the five critical communication channels that should be part of every platform engineering team’s ongoing strategy.

The essential communication channels

Documentation

Great documentation — ideally in an editable wiki or intranet that everyone can contribute to — is transformative for platform adoption. It dramatically reduces support overhead and accelerates user onboarding. Intentionally recording your knowledge is one of the most selfless and positive changes you can make in a team.

Your documentation needs to answer three questions concisely: What problem does your platform solve, what benefits can developers expect, and where can they find more information?

Effective documentation puts users first, organizing information around their journey rather than system architecture. It should also include:

• Straightforward "Getting Started" guides showing how easily basic use cases can be implemented
• A comprehensive knowledge base for more complex scenarios
• Clear examples and code snippets that users can adapt
• Regular updates that keep pace with platform changes

The best documentation anticipates user questions rather than just documenting system capabilities.

Team blog

Consider creating an internal blog for your platform engineering team where they can share ideas and solutions with the platform users. A dedicated blog space enables your team to share deeper context about your platform that wouldn’t fit in brief communications. Blog posts allow you to:

• Provide technical deep dives with diagrams or videos
• Give users insights into how your platform operates
• Cultivate knowledgeable platform advocates
• Build trust through transparency
• Give team members practice with technical communication
• Share success stories or interesting use cases for the platform

Blog content helps users understand how to use your platform and why certain design decisions were made, making them more effective users and potential advocates.

Health dashboard

When users encounter platform issues, nothing frustrates them more than silence. A health dashboard provides immediate visibility into known issues and their resolution status.

An effective dashboard serves multiple purposes in your communication strategy. First, it builds trust by acknowledging problems quickly rather than leaving users to wonder if issues will be addressed. During widespread outages, a dashboard significantly reduces duplicate support requests by providing a central source of truth about system status. Prospective users often review these dashboards to evaluate how reliably you operate before committing to your platform. Perhaps most importantly, a transparent health dashboard demonstrates your team’s commitment to openness and accountability, qualities that foster long-term trust with your user community.

Remember that dashboards must be accurate to maintain credibility. A dashboard showing all green systems during a known outage will destroy user trust. Similarly, reported problems should always include resolution updates.

Email updates

Despite inbox overload, email remains effective for periodic platform updates. Monthly newsletters help maintain awareness of your platform’s ongoing development and improvements.

These communications serve two purposes:

• Informing users about new features, improvements, and upcoming changes
• Demonstrating continuous momentum and investment in the platform

Remember that most recipients will skim emails for just a few seconds. Make key points stand out with clear formatting, concise language, and visual hierarchy. The communication reinforces your team's active presence even if users don’t read every word.

Real-time messaging

Your team should maintain a presence wherever your users naturally collaborate — which often means real-time chat platforms like Slack. Chat builds relationships with users through accessibility and responsiveness, creating a community around your platform. Here are a few golden rules teams can follow to ensure they’re building a good relationship with their users:

Respond to queries promptly. Chat moves quickly. Teams should aim to respond to user questions within 30-60 minutes during business hours to maintain engagement and show users they’re valued. It’s not ideal if users are chatting in real time about your product and your team is nowhere to be found.

Present a consistent voice to users. Think of your organization’s messaging systems as a “public” customer service channel. Maintain a separate “internal” channel where engineers can debate and discuss conflicting viewpoints. A user should never see two engineers debating with one another — they both lose credibility.

Document solutions publicly. After resolving an inquiry, ensure that engineers update the channel with the outcome so other users can benefit from the knowledge.

Open support tickets for users. Chat is great for quick questions, but more complicated requests should be tracked in issue management software. Instead of directing users to “open a ticket,” ensure your engineers can do this on behalf of the user.

Bringing it all together

Effective platform engineering requires a holistic approach to communication that combines all these channels into a cohesive strategy. Each channel serves distinct purposes and reaches different segments of your audience.

By implementing this comprehensive framework, your platform team can build trust, demonstrate value, and drive adoption — ultimately ensuring that your technical capabilities translate into business impact.

Remember that in enterprise environments, how you communicate about your platform often matters as much as the platform itself. Invest in communication with the same care you invest in your technical infrastructure.