Keeping Your Briefing Brief

Have you ever provided a status report that was too verbose?

I have, plenty of times. Until I learned this helpful model from my friends over at Search Optimizers.

Its a simple framework you can use any time you need to brief someone on what you’re working on. It’s called:

Briefing the General

Imagine you’re in the military and you have to brief the General who is probably a pretty busy person with limited time and lots of important things to do.

Develop the context of the briefing.

1. Be clear.
2. Be concise
3. Empathize with the general (put yourself in his / her shoes)

Share WHAT not WHY or HOW. But be sure to know the WHY or HOW so if asked you have an answer.

Think before the briefing, if I only get 30 seconds (because sometimes that’s all you’ll have):

1. What will I share?
2. What have I learned?
3. What am I going to do different?
4. What timeframe will I be using?
5. Can I picture sharing this as bullet points?

If you use this framework when you need to provide your next status update, you’ll do yourself and your “general” a huge favor.