Improv Can Kill Your Project Faster Than a Merger

I watched a senior PM walk into a steering committee with nothing but confidence and a vague understanding of his own project timeline. He opened with "so basically what we are doing is" and fifteen minutes later he walked out without his budget. 😬 He knew the work cold. He could have explained every dependency, every risk, every milestone. But he decided to wing it because he thought knowing the material was the same thing as communicating it. It is not.

There is a specific kind of professional who believes that preparation is for people who do not know their stuff. They treat the pitch like a jazz solo. Just feel the room and riff. 🎷 Here is what actually happens when you riff in front of a CFO. You lead with the mechanism instead of the outcome. You answer questions that were not asked. You use eleven sentences where two would have closed the deal. The audience does not think you are brilliant and spontaneous. They think you are unprepared. Because you are.

Improv is a wonderful art form. 🎭 It can also derail a project faster than a merger. Your stakeholders do not want a performance. They want to know why this matters, what it costs, and what happens next. In that order. In sixty seconds or less. That is not improv. That is engineering. 🔧