Status updates that don’t lie
A simple structure for updates when you’re uncertain: facts, unknowns, next step, next checkpoint.
Most teams don’t need “more updates.” They need fewer updates that sound confident and then collapse.
When you’re in the messy middle of a project (or an incident), the most useful update isn’t a promise. It’s a map.
A lying update usually compresses reality into a single adjective:
- “on track”
- “blocked”
- “almost done”
Those words make people feel better for five minutes and then make the reset feel personal.
A useful update does one of three things:
- adds new facts
- narrows uncertainty (range or scope)
- changes the plan early, while choices are still cheap
If nothing changed since the last update, say that plainly and keep it short. The lie isn’t that you didn’t make progress; it’s that you pretend you did.
Ask yourself: if a stakeholder read this, would they make a different decision? If not, your update is noise.
Takeaways
- Separate facts from assumptions. If you have to use “should,” say so.
- Include the unknown that dominates the schedule (the one thing you’re trying to learn next).
- End with a next checkpoint (a time, a deliverable, or a decision), not a vague “we’ll keep looking.”
A structure we use (copy/paste):
- What we know: …
- What we don’t know yet: …
- What we’re doing next: …
- Next update: … (when / what will be different)
Example (filled in):
- What we know: the export job runs in staging; 92% of accounts map cleanly
- What we don’t know yet: whether the remaining 8% are missing fields or have messy historical data
- What we’re doing next: production sample + fallback mapping for the missing field
- Next update: Thursday 3pm, with either (a) a narrowed ship range or (b) a scope trade
Notice what it doesn’t do: it doesn’t invent a date before discovery does.