5 Things To Do When Running a Weekly Status Update Meeting

I worked as a software developer for two tech firms previously. One of them did the weekly status update meetings in person, and one did it asynchronously.

In both these companies, the product managers did the same things - they handled the meetings, had to manage around 15+ people who were based around the world, and update their bosses regarding the work that was done by the team. Here are my learnings from working for these two product managers, and their different styles of weekly status update meetings.

1. Be consistent

You should have a regular, repeated schedule for collecting status updates. Select the frequency - daily, or 2-3 times a week, or weekly - and stick to that schedule so that everyone is aware and it becomes a habit for your team to fill in their status updates.

2. Make it public

One simple way to encourage everyone to submit their status updates is to make the answers public. By highlighting the people who are submitting them regularly, you are encouraging more activity. People like to imitate others, and so if they see that four people in their team have already submitted their status updates, they will be encouraged to do the same.

3. Do not manually ask for status updates

No one likes getting interrupted randomly with : "What's the update on XYZ? Is it finished?". Always have a repeated process for collecting status updates, which everyone in your team is aware of and is expected to update.

4. Do not ask for status updates in-person

When weekly update meetings are done in person or via Zoom - it usually requires everyone to log in and be present at the same time. If you have a remote team or if your employees are working from different time-zones, it will be hard to sync/agree on a good time to meet. Sometimes, I had to attend meetings at 11:00 AM, which interrupted my deep-work state. Also, if you have a mid-to-large team, these status meetings can easily go on for 30+ minutes. Instead, it was much more enjoyable when it was automated, and I could fill this online, at my own time, without getting interrupted at work.

5. Show your team what a good answer looks like

Give your employees an example of what is expected in their replies. If you are looking for a brief high-level summary of the major accomplishments done in the week, you have to specify that before they write their answers.