- Every priority owner posts once a week.
- Pick on course or deviating, then answer three questions in three to four sentences each.
- Deviating is an early warning, not a failure.
- Leaders can follow the whole month without a status meeting.
On this page
What’s in an updateWhy there are only two statusesWhat leaders getAt the end of the monthWriting a good updateMost status reports miss in one of two ways. Some take so long to write that people put them off, so they show up late and out of date. Others are one line, like "making progress", which tells a leader nothing. We built the weekly update to sit in between: long enough to show what actually happened, and short enough that it gets written every week.
What’s in an update
Every priority has one owner, and the owner posts one update a week. It has four parts.
- A status: on course or deviating.
- What got done since the last update.
- Challenges, if anything’s in the way.
- Next steps before the next update.
- What got done
- The gift-a-membership page went live on Monday, and the offer email went to 1,200 current members on Wednesday. We sold 38 gift memberships in week one, against a target of 30. Most came from the email, not the website. Nine buyers added a second gift.
- Challenges
- Two installers didn’t know how a gift gets redeemed, so one customer got a different answer from each. I wrote a short redemption script and sent it to every technician on Thursday. Checkout on phones is also dropping people at the payment step. Dana is looking into it, but we haven’t found the cause yet.
- Next steps
- Email past customers whose membership lapsed on Tuesday. Fix phone checkout before that email goes out. Check redemptions on Friday to make sure the script is working. If week two comes in under 30 sales, I’ll add a reminder text on Thursday.
Write three to four sentences for each answer. That’s enough room to say what happened, with numbers where you have them, and what it means for the month. One line isn’t enough for a leader to act on, and a page is more than anyone will read. You can post it from the web app or your phone.
Why there are only two statuses
We tried more options. Every extra one became a place to hide. "At risk", "a little behind" and "pending" usually mean the same thing: the owner isn’t sure and doesn’t want to say it.
Two statuses make you give a real answer. On course means you expect to deliver what you promised by the end of the month. Deviating means you don’t, as things look today.
Deviating isn’t failing. A priority marked deviating in week two still has two weeks to recover. Leaders can help, cut the scope or move people around while there’s still time. The same news at the end of the month is just a recap.
What leaders get
Because every update looks the same, a leader can read the whole month quickly. The current month shows how many active priorities are on course and how many are deviating, by goal area. The deviating ones are where you spend your attention. Everything else is moving.
Teammates can react to an update too, so "nice work" or "need help?" doesn’t need a meeting either. By the end of the month, the updates are the record of how each priority actually went.
At the end of the month
The last update of the month is different. The owner closes the priority as executed or failed and writes down what the results were. That note is required, because it’s what next month learns from. If a priority from an earlier month is still open, it shows up for its owner to close, so nothing quietly rolls forward.
Writing a good update
- Lead with what happened. "38 sold" is more useful than "worked hard on sales".
- Mark deviating as soon as you think it. Earlier is better.
- Make your next steps something a teammate could check next week.
- Stick to three or four sentences an answer. Fewer leaves leaders guessing, and more turns it into a report nobody reads.
