A client told me our project updates were 'like reading a legal document' and asked for bullet points instead.

We switched from three-page weekly reports to a single slide with five key bullets, and they said it was the first time they actually read the whole thing.

3 comments

3 Comments

shane_park921mo ago

Wow, that's such a clear win. I mean, do you think they were just skimming the long reports before, or did they actually try and get lost in the details?

the_brian1mo ago

Look at it from the client's side though. Those three page reports had the full story, all the data. Now they're getting five bullets. What if bullet number three skips over a small problem that becomes a big one later? The old way forced them to see everything, even if it was a bit dry. Maybe they didn't read it before because they trusted the summary at the top. Now there is no summary, just the highlights. You can miss a lot in just highlights.

robertcarr1mo ago

Honestly, we ran into that exact worry from @the_brian. Our fix was to keep the five bullet email but link to a one-page doc with the full data. The bullets point to the big issues, and the client can click through if a bullet flags something they want the full story on. Tbh it cut down on the noise but kept the door open for the details.