The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Keep Briefings at 30k Feet | FF46

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Sharing some tips on keeping briefings to the C-suite or large groups at a high level and not getting caught in the weeds.

Welcome to Foundations Friday, episode 46, staying at 30,000 feet. So, am I talking about traveling by plane? No, although you probably are at that height if you're traveling across the country or somewhere like that. But really what I'm speaking about is when we as project managers, whether you're on a big project or maybe you're moving up, you're a senior PM or a program manager and you're asked to brief the C-suite. That's those chief executive level folks or a large group of people, 200, 300 folks, your whole organization. Or you just need to give a quick update to someone that asks something that doesn't need all the details. 30,000 feet is kind of a euphemism, I guess, used to say strategic, right? Whereas tactical, it's ground level, there's 10,000 feet, which is kind of in between those. It's a gauge that does

have to do with altitude. But really, what it has to do is, if I'm talking to two or 300 people in my organization, similarly, I'm talking to my steering committee, or, you know, a room full of chief executives or VPs, etc. They don't need the details on when this widget is going to move to this place, on what date, at what time. What they do need to know is generally we are this percent through the whole thing, or this phase, we're on schedule, we're on budget, all that kind of stuff. And then any kind of key information, here's some risks we know of, we have contingencies for those like I've talked about on the show before.

But it takes some practice to not jump down in the weeds. If you've been in the weeds with the team for a while, then you're asked to brief. So this is something I suggest for PMs that'll help you mature as a project manager. If you're new, practice this, talking about, look at all the detailed information, then pull it up a level.

Kind of like if you were in school at any level, high school, college, whatever, or have just done writing, where you say, I'm going to tell you these things, here's all the details of it. And then here's what I told you, do the here's what I told you part, right, the last summary, kind of like you do on a paper, and let someone know, here's what we're doing at a high level, overall, the objective kind of stuff, right, leader's intent of the group you're talking to or lets folks know what the leader's intent is. And then, again, we're on schedule. We do have some risks. We have this, this, and that.

But it's a high level. It's not the detailed task. So I would encourage everyone to get good at, especially if you're a project manager or you're asked to lead some sort of effort for your organization or you're not officially a PM. Get used to summarizing or practicing summarizing what you are doing overall for the effort and be able to say it in like two minutes, and then you can expand if you need to. So try and get down a good summary that relays the high-level view of your effort. I thank you all for taking the effort to listen to this episode to the show, hit and play sharing it please on Apple podcasts or other platforms, leave a rating and review.

Go to people process progress.com. That's where I post the blog and a little more details, and maybe links to resources that I mentioned on the episodes here. I hope you all are staying safe out there. Please certainly wash those hands and Godspeed.