My work consists of fixing cybersecurity problems that were identified during a detailed assessment. This makes the project status meeting the most important meeting that I have with clients. Most remediation projects last between 90 days and 12 months depending upon how bad the situation is.

After the initial project kickoff meeting. the work done for a client happens behind the scenes. I could complete 90 days of work and never talk to the client: however, it is better and more effective to meet regularly and communicate about our progress toward the deliverables that were promised.

The client status meeting occurs weekly and allows me to share with the client what has been done, confirm that we are on track, discuss barriers to success that need to be addressed, and discuss important information discovered during the work performed. The last item is extremely important for security work. I cannot wait until the end of a long-term project to tell a client that a critical vulnerability was found! Because we have a regular meeting on the schedule each week, I can follow up about out-of-cycle information to ensure important items have been addressed.

Clients receive a project status report at the end of each week that tracks everything going on. This makes preparation for the next meeting easy because the report includes notes from the most recent project status meeting. This has become a great tool to help prepare for each subsequent meeting.