I’m OK; The Bull Is Dead. Gopal K. Kapur is the founder and president of the Center for Project Management. I liked his article because I struggle with conveying important information in an understandable way and I found his four step process enlightiening.

"I’m OK; The Bull Is Dead"

The quote is a great example of how to convey the core pieces of information in just a few words. Later the article explains the whole situation. I likely would've spent a few minutes trying to explain what happened. The article demonstrates how to do that in a few paragraphs in a more engaging way.

Gopal explains his fourth step process to give concise interesting status reports.

1. Punch line: The facts; no adjectives, adverbs or modifiers. "Milestone 4 wasn't hit on time, and we didn't start Task 8 as planned." Or, "Received charter approval as planned."

2. Current status: How the punch-line statement affects the project. "Because of the missed milestone, the critical path has been delayed five days."

3. Next steps: The solution, if any. "I will be able to make up three days during the next two weeks but will still be behind by two days."

4. Explanation: The reason behind the punch line. "Two of the five days' delay is due to late discovery of a hardware interface problem, and the remaining three days' delay is due to being called to help the customer support staff for a production problem."

In journalism this is known as the inverted pyramid style. It begins with the conclusion, follows with the most important facts, and ends with the details. Gopal warns against using the academic style for status reports. The academic style is when you start with the problem, explain the background, discuss influencing factors, and finish with the conclusion. He says that in academic style by the time you get to the conclusion, most people have difficulty giving it the full attention, even though it's the most important part.