Communicating Progress

Communicating progress involves keeping your team, stakeholders, and leadership informed about the product's development progress, including achievements, issues, and roadblocks. This is crucial for maintaining alignment, managing expectations, and fostering a culture of transparency.

Example

Consider a Product Manager at an audio book company like Audible. They are overseeing the development of a new book recommendation feature. To communicate progress, they might use a combination of different methods.

For instance, they could use sprint reviews with the development team to discuss completed tasks, ongoing work, and any issues encountered. They might send out weekly email updates to the broader organization, highlighting key achievements and discussing any challenges. They could also hold regular stakeholder meetings to provide more detailed updates, celebrate wins, and discuss any roadblocks or changes in the plan. This multi-channel approach ensures that everyone involved is kept informed about the product's progress.

Pain Points

Ensuring regular and effective communication can be time-consuming. It's also important to tailor your communication to different audiences and manage the potential impact of bad news. All Product Managers will face challenges when there are delays in the development process or when they need to communicate bad news to the broader company.

Practical Exercise

Reflect on a project or product you're familiar with. How would you communicate progress to your team, stakeholders, and leadership? What communication strategies would you use? What potential challenges might you face and how would you handle them?

Related Research Topics

• Reporting techniques [ Google | Perplexity ]

• Stakeholder management [ Google | Perplexity ]

• Agile ceremonies [ Google | Perplexity ]

• Communication strategies in project management. [ Google | Perplexity ]