by Gordon Zhu, December 2024
This was inspired by a post I read in 2012 as a young product manager, Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager, by Ben Horowitz.
In software, an enduring part of difficult projects is the recurring "update" or "standup" meeting. These can be done live or asynchronously. The goals are to:
Good updates are a mechanism for being honest with yourself and others. This instills confidence and increases trust. Bad updates are a mechanism to deceive yourself and others. This creates doubt and destroys trust.
Good updates use the past tense to show what was accomplished ("wrote function that does X"). Bad updates use the present tense to hide the fact that nothing was accomplished ("working on function that does X" === "I did nothing, but won't admit it").
Good updates mention only work that is directly relevant to the broader mission. Bad updates mention unrelated tasks (aka fake work). This can also distract your team, who will waste their time if they look into what you did.
Good updates are precise ("Wrote full documentation for 3 of 8 endpoints"). Bad updates are vague ("Worked on documentation for endpoints").
Good updates use specific action verbs like "wrote" and "documented". Bad updates use vague verbs like "started", "began", "worked on", "continued", "finished".
Good updates take total responsibility. If nothing or very little was accomplished, the update communicates that without hiding and without excuses. Bad updates shirk responsibility. If nothing was accomplished, there's no update at all. If there is one, it's full of excuses.
Good updates are posted like clockwork because they're written by people that have discipline. Bad updates are posted sporadically, only when the author has something good to say.
Good updates exhibit patience, care, and thoughtfulness. You can tell because they'll often include observations that can only be made by someone who is paying close attention. This also makes them interesting. Bad updates exhibit a general lack of thoughtfulness and are always boring.
Good updates only describe what was accomplished during the reporting period. Bad updates contort the period to warp reality. For example, at a weekly standup, a good update should describe what was accomplished in the last week. A bad update, to hide the fact that nothing was accomplished in the last week, will change the reporting period to "the last month" instead.
Good updates are a symptom of a well-functioning team and a strong manager. Bad updates are a symptom of a broken team and a weak manager. More on this in the next section.
It's popular to dismiss these meetings as a pointless waste of time. I'm sympathetic to this idea, and have felt it many times before. But this is like eating a Lunchables pizza and then claiming pizza is disgusting.
It is true that most managers do the Lunchable version of these update meetings, and everyone rightly hates them for it. But when done well, they elicit a decidedly different reaction. Imagine a side-by-side test of Lunchables versus Lucali.
The big problem is that quality is painful. The biggest bottleneck is the manager (this could go all the way up to the CEO). The manager must have high standards and a strong spine. They must set clear standards, by sharing a document like this one, and then they must enforce the standards without mercy.
Enforcement means that problems must be pointed out immediately. And if the person cannot adjust, they should be managed out. Otherwise, the team will understand that low performance is tolerated, maybe even rewarded (as some low performers may get promoted).
In our main program, we have students submit a weekly written update. We do written updates for a few reasons:
Having the written update is also helpful in goal setting for the week. A powerful technique is to start the week with the minimum update you'd be happy with. And then throughout the week, you just have to make the update true.
Since our students are all at different points in the curriculum, they do have to be mindful about divulging information that might ruin an assignment for others. Aside from that though, our environment isn't any different than the typical workplace.