If you're looking to sell a new idea within your company, BNET's crash course on How to Sell an Idea is worth your time. Step 3 - Map the idea to the perspective of the decision maker, is equally important when presenting a project status to senior management. From a career perspective, your status reports can be more than just a recap of the progress or issues. Your status meeting provides you with the attention of upper management. This is a perfect time to sell your competence and leadership skills to the people who will be making decisions on your next assignment or promotion. BNET lists the perspectives of each of the senior exectives. These perspectives can be extrapolated to decision makers at all levels of the corporation:

• Corporate, Division, Function Leader - Will it increase the value of the organization?
• Finance - What's the return on investment?
• Operations - Can we execute on this plan?
• Information Technology - Will it run on our systems?
• Marketing - Will the market understand it?
• Sales - Will our customers buy it?

Time spent thinking about the questions that your audience will have and tailoring your message to respond to their concerns will position you as someone who understands a bigger picture than just your immediate assignment or project.