stopped reading at "don't hold status meetings, get people to write it down". This is such monumentally bad advice it immediately made me discount the rest.
Down this road lies write-only status updates that have been the bane of dev teams since forever.
If your priorities lie elsewhere than with keeping up with what your team(s) are doing then you don't need status updates; you need to delegate the management function.
If you're not meeting one-on-one with your immediate reports each week then delegate the management function.
If you're really so busy doing "important stuff" that what your actual employees are working on is not worth the time it takes for them to tell you about it, then you're doing it wrong.
Down this road lies write-only status updates that have been the bane of dev teams since forever.
If your priorities lie elsewhere than with keeping up with what your team(s) are doing then you don't need status updates; you need to delegate the management function.
If you're not meeting one-on-one with your immediate reports each week then delegate the management function.
If you're really so busy doing "important stuff" that what your actual employees are working on is not worth the time it takes for them to tell you about it, then you're doing it wrong.