How do you Make Unique Status Reports?

Your status report will be unique by default because it is focused on your own top objectives, blockers and agenda for the following week. Using a tool like Weekly Update, you’ll likely have a few different fields to fill out each week and have a good degree of flexibility on what you write.

Some items you may consider:

1. Use bulleted lists and avoid fluff

Your status reports must be easy to read. Consider using bulleted lists and avoiding long paragraphs. This significantly increases the probability that the rest of the team will digest what you wrote.

2. Highlight numbers and key metrics

Your update is a great place to note numbers and metrics related your goals. In my last company where I led sales and customer success, I would include the MRR we closed that week and stats on how key customer accounts were using the product.

3. Be honest with concerns

This is a great place to be transparent with what is not working and what may need to be escalated to get a resolution. Capturing concerns in a written weekly update prevents them from being lost in the shuffle.

4. Call out people’s names with action items

Finally, as you recap action items in your status report it can be useful to quickly note specific requests you have for different members of the team. Perhaps you are working on an initiative that requires marketing collateral — you may note that and directly call out the VP Marketing to comment on resource availability.