The Art of the Stakeholder Update
There’s a version of the stakeholder update that every engineering leader has written — the one that’s technically accurate, covers everything, and lands completely flat. The SVP skims it, asks one clarifying question that’s actually answered in paragraph four, and moves on. Nothing bad happens, but nothing good happens either. The update was noise. At some point early in my career managing large organizations, I realized that “thorough” and “useful” are not the same thing. An update that takes thirty minutes to write and thirty seconds to absorb is infinitely more valuable than one that takes thirty minutes to read and leaves the reader unsure whether to be worried. The craft is in the compression — and the honesty. ...