Opinion
Status Updates Are Dead: The PM’s New Job
Sarah Chen
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We don’t need humans to move cards anymore. Your repo, PRs, design files, and deploys already tell the story. The question is: what’s the PM’s job now?
What Software Can Do (So You Don’t)
- Infer status from merges and deploys.
- Detect drift between roadmap and reality.
- Summarize progress without a status meeting.
What Humans Must Do (Because It Matters)
- Priorities: decide the next irreversible move.
- Escalation: unblock what software can’t see (people, politics, vendors).
- Narrative: make the work legible to customers and leadership.
Operating Cadence
- Daily: 3 bullets — shipped, blocked, next bet.
- Weekly: one-page demo notes with links, not slides.
- Monthly: a memo that ties metrics to decisions.
Let the system watch the work. Let the PM own the decision‑making.