![]() ![]() ![]() Story time: here’s how I learned this lesson: So the preparation for a status update is the same as any other situation, you just edit judiciously before actually speaking. Of course, you still need †o know your shit! There very well might be questions, and detailed ones, and if you can’t back up what you’ve just said with the details, it’s a bad look. Executives, especially at large organizations, need to synthesize a truly staggering amount of information, and so effective executives learn to value people who filter for “what you need to know.” The assumption becomes: if you didn’t mention it it’s because it doesn’t warrant mention, not because you don’t know it. I think the difference is that, at the top of an organization, there tends to be a shift away from this kind of “proof” towards a general assumption of information-sharing on a need-to-know basis. They can feel the need to provide “proof” by getting into the weeds. Or they’re afraid that the lack of detail can be seen as a sign that they don’t know what’s going on. It can seem like there’s not enough information to show the status accurately. I think people can struggle with this lack of detail when they first try it. But it’s exactly what I want the executive team to know: things are on track, one person on the team is doing great work worth highlighting, and here’s my one question. This might seem weird: there aren’t any specifics about deliverables, or features shipped, or how anyone on the team is doing (other than J-), etc. I need some guidance from this team on that point: can you folks let me know if that cost seems OK or not? We either need to decide that cost is acceptable, or add some extra time to the schedule for performance optimization. We do have some cost risk: right now, the code’s pretty inefficient and would require us to increase our AWS spend by 25% when we put this into production. I want to particularly highlight J-’s design work every time we share a new demo with our user research group they rave over how much they love the design. We’re making steady progress: we’ve delivered a bit over half of the features on our roadmap, and we’re on track to launch publicly in May. A request for the team (or specific people), if I have it.If we’re over budget, running late, or at risk of any of those: I’ll highlight them. One or two of our biggest risks, if they’re something the executive team needs to know about.I’ll also use this point to highlight someone on the team whose work has been especially great lately. If we just hit a big milestone, or shipped something major, or solved a huge problem, it’s worth bragging about. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |