Keeping the exec team updated and on-side about the tech team’s goals and roadmaps is an essential task for every tech leader. To maintain trust, being fully honest and open is the best policy, as leadership won’t welcome being caught off guard in the future. The exec team will want to hear everything going on with the tech team and its initiatives—the good news and the bad news—as well as how your work is driving the company’s overall goals.
It’s imperative to keep your audience in mind and remember that when it comes to tech, the leadership team is usually much more interested in “what” and “why” than “how.” Furthermore, it’s important to tell that story in ways they’ll understand. Below, 16 members of Forbes Technology Council share essential details and factors a tech leader should include when preparing to update the exec team on the tech team’s ongoing work, and why they’re so important.
Members pictured from left to right (Charan Gowda not pictured).
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. The Team’s Trust Level
There are certainly ways to report on the mechanics and roadmap. That is all very technical—necessary, but technical. As the emergence of emotional IQ has increased across executive teams, I think it’s equally as important for the tech leader to prepare an update on the team’s trust level. It is critical for productivity and strong outcomes to create transparent and positive relationships. – Kashif Aftab, SkillGigs, Inc.
2. The Team’s Business Impact
Executive leadership is interested in knowing how technologies are moving the needle on the business side. Updates to executive leadership should include the tech team’s business impact in terms of numbers. It could be hard or soft savings, optimization of business processes, additional revenue generation due to an initiative, or improvements in safety and quality. They are at least interested in technologies and platforms. – Charan Gowda, Mears Group Inc.
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3. A Roadmap In Sync With Emerging Technologies
One of the most critical factors in building a technology roadmap is to make sure that executive leadership is kept abreast of technology trends and emerging technologies within the market. As a tech leader, it is important to build a roadmap that is in sync with emerging technologies and that can guide the exec team in building a vision based on a solid understanding of the technological backbone. – Geetika Tandon, Deloitte Consulting LLP
4. Visibility Into Risk
I think the most important factor is providing ongoing visibility into risk. Many times, tech leaders try to present the current status without bringing up underlying issues, hoping that those issues will be resolved in due course. We only report when things are out of our control. It’s better to keep executives aware of impending risks and issues, even if they are being mitigated. – Sanjjeev Singh, ASAR AMERICA, INC.
5. Vocabulary The Exec Team Understands
Vocabulary is the most critical factor in communications between executive leadership and technology teams. Regardless of how much detail is provided, if it’s not done in a vocabulary that the executive team understands, it will get little attention. State achievements followed by the outcomes they enabled. Follow that up with critical needs and related positive and negative business impacts. – Raymond Hicks, UncommonX Inc.
6. A Link Between Each Tech Task And Its Impact On OKRs
Be sure that every single task is directly tied to an overall organizational goal. Even small details, such as implementing a new workflow for ticketing or tweaking a feature, impact objectives and key results, including maintaining high margins and high customer satisfaction. Make sure everyone on the team is empowered to think like a leader. And be humble: Remind everyone that we all have detailed work to do to achieve the vision. – Ann Marie Sastry, Amesite
7. Alignment With Specific Business Goals And Initiatives
Tech leaders need to align their tech goals and roadmaps with the strategic goals and initiatives of the broader business. All metrics, KPIs and reporting have to align with specific business goals and initiatives. If a tech leader isn’t making the connection from their roadmap to what really matters to the business, their update will fall on deaf ears at the executive and board levels. – James Carder, Eptur
8. External Case Studies On Sector-Wide Trends
Tech leaders should help brief their executive teams to engage in productive dialogue by framing their team’s progress in the context of both their organizational roadmap and broader, sector-wide trends. Pulling in external case studies that help articulate the art of the possible and providing supporting data points will help provide executives with a greater sightline into transformation in the market. – Shaheen Yazdani, Intercept
9. Potential Costs And Downtime
When discussing goals and current roadmaps, a tech leader should include any potential costs or downtime that were not initially discussed. Removing surprises keeps all parties engaged, and the added confidence in the overall planning will be appreciated. The exec team needs to have faith that the tech leader will protect all party’s interests. – Robert Giannini, GiaSpace Inc.
10. Additional Potential Resources Needed For, And Impact From, Work In Development
Regardless of whether everything is running ahead of schedule or falling behind, the ultimate delivery of the work in development should not come with surprises. These surprises could include additional creative assets or marketing requirements—even compliance and legal ramifications. Game out the impact from the start, and communicate it early and often to ensure the message is heard. – Dustin Henderson, Threadless
11. A Strategy Linking Companywide Metrics To Specific Initiatives
Leverage a goal deployment strategy in which key companywide metrics are linked to specific initiatives. Having tech goals without a plan to execute them is simply dreaming. Having many tech initiatives that are not aligned with your roadmap and goals could lead to wasted effort. Aligning your goals and initiatives with a clear product roadmap can change the world. – Richard Lebovitz, LeanDNA
12. A Summary Of Points Of Friction And Their Resolutions
Not all executive teams have technical acumen. Therefore, it is the tech leader’s responsibility to summarize points of friction and offer a resolution. Tech leaders need to perform after-action reviews of problems, concisely answering four questions: 1. What was the intended action? 2. What actually happened? 3. What was the root cause? 4. What are we doing to ensure a better outcome? – Steven Khuong, Curacubby
13. The Status Of Key USPs
Executive leaders want to know how their product is going to impact the market and hence are keen to understand the unique selling propositions, or USPs, that differentiate them from competitors. It is important for tech leaders to update executive leadership on the engineering status of key features and their place in the go-to-market plan. It is also important to include the trade-offs made and the reasons for the same. – Vasudevan Swaminathan, Zuci Systems
14. Critical Risks To Business Imperatives And Options To Stay On Track
The biggest focus should be on imperatives that matter to the business in order to keep operating, scaling and moving. It is not only important to highlight critical risks to those imperatives, call out where there are deviations and explain the “why” but also to put options in place to keep the goals and roadmaps moving. This way, your exec team knows you are on top of things and delivering results. – Erika Voss, Capital One Software
15. Context-Sensitive Progress Updates And Insights Along With Team Challenges
The tech team should provide critical and insightful information along with regular progress updates. The necessary information is very context-sensitive and depends on where the company and its product are in their life cycles. It could be insights about the competition’s product, how yours is better and why you will win, or the risks to the schedule and their mitigation. It should also include the challenges the team is facing and how the exec team can help. – Kaitki Agarwal, A5G Networks, Inc.
16. A Holistic View Of The Current Situation Along With Your Recommendations To Move Forward
Be clear on the message you want to send, and determine how you will tell the story so that everyone in the room understands it; storytelling enables much more engagement, and it’s important to leave out any acronyms or jargon. Be balanced and provide a holistic view of the current situation and your recommendations on how to move the business forward, and include alternative views for the leadership team to understand. – Jason Cross, Newfold Digital