Communicating at the listener's altitude
The same update cut again for each audience's concerns and level of abstraction (cost and risk, timeline and scope, impact and resolution), starting from what the listener has to decide.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Every update to a non-engineering audience; every answer to vague executive pressure, which gets clarified before it is answered.
Where it stops working
A message cut to the listener's altitude leaves out detail that matters to engineers. The judgment is about which details change the listener's decision, with the rest kept available instead of delivered.
Where the standard uses it
- SV-2Communicating and partnering across functionsProduct, design, executives, and non-engineering stakeholders.
Used alongside it
- Disagree and commit practice
- Engineering as business partner practice
- Trade-off transparency practice
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Communicating at the listener's altitude. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.communicating-at-the-listener-s-altitude). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/communicating-at-the-listener-s-altitude