Individual Status Report
“Manage Up without Kissing Up.”
An individual status report is a team member’s snapshot of primary accomplishments from the past week and goals for the upcoming week
Every week (as frequently as every 3 workdays and possibly as infrequently as every 7 workdays), every team member should share a written snapshot of their work to their manager. Nothing elaborate – just a clear inventory of their workstreams, a few bullet points to convey accomplishments and highlights of the past 1-2 weeks, and a few bullet points to convey the goals and plans for the next 1-2 weeks.
A personal status report helps both employee and manager to set boundaries of their role at any given time. Poorly setting boundaries or under-communicating about boundaries is a slippery slope to disappointments, poor performance, perception of poor performance, and perception of poor leadership.
This report conveys to the manager exactly what the individual is working on, the attention to detail for the work, and where work is flying along or stuck and stagnating. Managers use this report to coach, reprioritize, and remove barriers for their employees. Employees use this report to keep themselves highly organized, focused, avoid overload, and build a paper trail of accomplishments to be able to reference if they ever summarize their contributions over a long period of time, e.g., Annual Performance Review time.
Frequency: Weekly
Adjacent Assets: Workstream Status Report, Workload Report, Pie Chart, I Like I Wish I Hope I Wonder