“I’ve got the project review with the leadership team in two weeks. Put something together for me.” Your boss says it in passing, between one meeting and the next. The PM goes back to their desk, opens the last status report, attaches the schedule and sends twenty-four slides.
Two weeks later the boss gets five minutes in front of the leadership team and one question: “so how late is this project, actually?” The answer is on slide seventeen, in a footnote under a chart. The boss doesn’t remember it, says “a bit”, and leaves the room with a task to come back in a month with something concrete.
The PM did what was asked. They handed over everything they had. The trouble is that the boss didn’t need everything.
Your boss wasn’t in your meetings
This is the starting point that is easy to forget. The material the PM prepares will be told by someone who never sat in a single daily, doesn’t know the module names and has six other projects in their head.
Material like that has to survive being retold in someone else’s words. If your boss can’t sum it up in the lift, they won’t be able to defend it in the room either.
One page, four things
In my experience one page is enough, with four things on it.
Where we are, in one sentence and with one number. “We are six weeks behind plan” instead of “we have a slight delay”. Everyone in the room will understand “slight” differently, and everyone will understand the number the same way.
What has changed since the last review. The leadership team remembers what it heard last time. If it was green then and it is red today, the first question will be about that difference. Better for your boss to answer it before it is asked.
What we need from the leadership team. A decision, a person, money, approval to move a date, or nothing. In that case it is worth saying so plainly: “this is for information, we are not asking for anything”. A leadership team that doesn’t know what is expected of it starts looking for that on its own.
What we don’t know yet and when we will. This is the part written least often and the most useful one. “We don’t know yet whether the supplier will make it with the fix. We will know next Thursday.” A sentence like that lets your boss say “I don’t know” in a way that sounds like being in control. It is the same logic as in the structure a sponsor update needs, only written for someone who will speak on your behalf.
Three questions that will be asked anyway
The same three questions come back at project reviews, whatever the company.
How long have we known about this? What have we already done about it? What happens if we change nothing?
For each of them it is worth giving your boss a two-sentence answer, on a separate sheet, outside the main page. The first question is the least comfortable, because sometimes the honest answer is “for a month”. Better for your boss to hear it from the PM at their desk than from the CEO at the table.
Why two weeks and not the evening before
Bad news delivered the evening before the review can only be read. There is no time for anything else.
Two weeks give your boss three options. They can question the PM and send the material back for another pass. They can talk to one or two people from the leadership team beforehand, so the bad news is not a surprise in the room. They can also do something: call the supplier, move a person, make a decision that is within their reach. Sometimes after those two weeks a different, better message goes to the review.
What not to hand over
The whole schedule. The list of every risk. Sentences like “we are working on it” and “we are monitoring the situation”, which don’t say who is working and by when. Abbreviations only the team knows.
If your boss wants the details, they will ask. Usually they don’t.
One question for this week
If your boss had to talk about your project for five minutes tomorrow, without you in the room, what would they say? Is it the same thing you would say?
All situations described in this article are based on real events, but contain no company names, no individual names, and no data from any specific project.
