Purpose of 30-3 Project Updates: Time is precious. Stakeholders want and need project updates. But, do not want to over-invest. Dashboards are a fine example, relying on green lights, yellow lights, and red lights to highlight the status of project activities.
Another approach you can use for project updates includes the “30 in 3” update. It takes less than 30 minutes to create and less than three minutes to read.
Project Updates Method
Project Updates
You may choose to build the following on your own. In the spirit of Sprint Reviews and Daily Scrums, you can easily use a similar method. With a group of people, build a consensually agreed-upon message. It’s a good thing when it sounds like we all attended the same meeting.
Project Updates Audience and Message
Either start with a list of the primary (and perhaps secondary) stakeholders or build one. For each, ask the group what they would tell that stakeholder if they were asked at the water cooler, coffee pot, or on an elevator ride. Secure agreement from your group especially, on specific words or terms that should or should NOT be used. Amazingly, when you ask a group of people to update the same project, you will discover disconnects about the shared knowledge and perspective that are best repaired while you still have the team at your disposal.
Project Updates Benefit
Having agreed on what to say and what NOT to say, you have built-in a measure of quality control for your meeting output or messaging. When a coherent and cohesive team of talented people is marching in unison, there is no end to what they can accomplish.
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Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
Hello Terrence,
I like the concept and the focus. Too many project managers prepare their progress reports in isolation when they should involve their stakeholders. The best way to know how well something is going is to ask.
As ever, Martin