Why presence matters more than status

Status reports lie. Not because people lie. Because "on track" is the answer that costs the least to give.

Presence is different. Whether someone is heads-down, available, blocked, or out is a fact about the next thirty minutes, not a prediction about the next thirty days. It has a clear ground truth. People rarely fake it because it gets caught immediately.

A team that can see presence in real time doesn't need most of the status meetings it currently runs. A team that can't see presence runs meetings to manufacture the signal presence would have provided for free.