As always, my week unearths an interesting conundrum that has some useful insights buried within.

This week's insight came from helping a team update their Board on their progress over the past year.

Here's my number 1 takeaway that I want to share with you also.

Your ‘update' will be more useful to you and more interesting to your stakeholders if discuss what you delivered rather than what you did.

I have included the before and after below to illustrate what I mean while also offering three suggestions.

Firstly, you may note that the ‘after' uses a variation of the Traffic Light story, which I think is very useful for this kind of update.

This is where we focus the storyline around the different measures for success, or KPIs if you will.

Secondly, the supporting points in the ‘after' are again skeletal, but follow a useful pattern. They enable us to explain what our own view is on our performance and then support that by offering external validation.

Thirdly, ‘sketching out' a storyline in the way we have for the ‘after' is just the start. This helps surface the broad themes. The real value comes in being highly specific and drawing out a message for each point as a fully formed thought.

I hope that helps. More next week.

Kind regards,
Davina

PS – We will have a working session this coming week. Do register on the Sessions Registration page . We will offer only one during July as I will be taking some time away. Sheena will, however be on deck to help with any logistical questions you may have.

BEFORE

AFTER