What are good rules of thumb for introducing a new development to non-technical stakeholders?
You need to quantify progress for non-tech people in a way that they can understand - talk about completed features, describe use cases and user stories, and share the next milestones.
Use short sentences with clear language and lots of graphics. Try to create metaphors that ordinary people can relate to.
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If you show them a beta, alpha, or even a prototype, show them things that don't work as broken. for example, gray menus or use only rough graphics. Otherwise, they will think that you have almost completed the entire project the first time they see it.
Building the interface is often the easy part; and they will not remember (not mater what you tell them) that the code is behind.
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I agree with the answer to the image. Also, plan to be able to expand your presentation if your audience is interested, but if they only want 1000 feet to be hit with top-level dots. The key is to stay in touch with the audience while you are presenting so you know how much detail they want.
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Understand your audience and at what level of detail and timeframe it makes sense for a given meeting. For some new developments in front of a high-level steering committee can work great for defining general rules, and if there is a one-on-one meeting going into the details of "What should the application do if ..." gets answered again and again, because sometimes users do not understand that the computer must have steps for anya situation that might not go so well if you have half a dozen VP in and discuss a few bugs that most of them don't care at all. As for the moment in time, you need to keep the agenda in mind and know what from different points of view should be discussed or reported. If you've booked a 4 hour meeting that ends 30 minutes a few times, you risk losing confidence if the meeeting ever takes longer, as some people might think, “Well, we've had it 3 times now and every time done in 30 minutes, what's different this time? "
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