> With rare exceptions, management wants to hear 'no problem' and that 'everything is fine'.
This makes me so sad. As a manager (formerly an engineer), I want to hear about problems as soon as possible! I can help! It's my job to clear roadblocks, to help find interesting projects, to keep the team working well together for the long term.
It doesn't do me, the engineer, the project, or the team any good to hide problems. Such a bummer when managers push for short term results over the long term health of the team.
I should be more clear. When I say 'management', I'm really referring to 2nd level managers and up. From my experience, line managers are either the member of the technical staff who tells the lords and masters that everything is fine (and are mostly fighting fires or pushing a chunk of hardware through a pipeline) or they have three ring binders full of yearly company-supplied HR stuff. In neither case is there enough power to really 'run' things. Heaven help you if there's a completely separate creature known as the 'project manager'.
OTOH, directors/VPs (and other intermediate levels in larger firms) are not only the people that senior technical staff will run to for various reasons, but also are the folks who love to hear 'no problem' and that 'everything is fine'. Bringing them things to worry about is best done cautiously. In the final analysis, the worker bees are ERUs.
YMMV (very much so) of course. I can speak only for about a dozen companies. The world is a big place.
With rare exceptions, management wants to hear 'no problem' and that 'everything is fine'.
The next thing to do is a PowerPoint chart for the 2nd level managers showing names and stress levels over time with trends.