coalesce-labs/status-update

Quick Start

Tell me:

1. Who is this update for? (your team, your manager, execs, cross-functional stakeholders)
2. What time period? (daily, weekly, monthly, project milestone)
3. Any specific topics to highlight? (launches, blockers, metrics, decisions)

I'll pull context from your PRDs, meetings, and metrics automatically.

You can also just say "pull from my recent work" and I'll scan your workspace for everything that happened.

Shortcut: /status-update weekly for my manager -- and I'll handle the rest.

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/status-update - Weekly Updates That Actually Get Read

When the PM types /status-update, create status updates that communicate progress, surface blockers, and keep stakeholders aligned.

Context Routing Logic (Internal - for Claude)

Automatic Context Checks: When this skill is invoked, immediately check:

| Source | Files/Folders | Search Terms | What to Extract | | -------------------- | ---------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | | Recent PRDs | thoughts/shared/pm/prds/*.md | feature being updated | Feature status and changes | | Meeting Notes | thoughts/shared/product/meeting-notes/*.md | this week's meetings | Decisions, action items, blockers | | Action Items | thoughts/shared/product/meeting-notes/ | completed / in progress / blocked | Track completion of commitments | | Strategy | thoughts/shared/pm/frameworks/*.md | strategic pillars | Tie accomplishments to strategy | | Metrics | thoughts/shared/pm/metrics/*.md | baseline, trends | Metric movement and progress | | Stakeholder Profiles | Stakeholder templates | your audience | Communication style for audience |

Context Priority:

1. Your recent work (PRDs, meetings) FIRST
2. Completed action items SECOND
3. Strategic context (pillars, goals) THIRD
4. Metrics and progress FOURTH

Cross-Skill Links:

• If action items from meetings → Reference /meeting-notes
• If progress on features → Reference /prd-draft or /feature-results
• If metric updates → Reference /metrics-framework and North Star
• If blockers → Link to relevant skill for resolution (e.g., /prd-draft if scope unclear)

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Step 0: Understanding Your Update Context

Before drafting, let me gather what happened...

Checking:

• thoughts/shared/product/meeting-notes/ for recent meetings this week/period
• thoughts/shared/pm/prds/ for features you're working on
• thoughts/shared/pm/metrics/ for recent metric changes
• thoughts/shared/pm/frameworks/ for strategic context
• Stakeholder profiles for communication style of audience

Based on what I find, I'll show you:

Your Recent Work

Completed This Week:

• [Shipped features / completed action items]
• [Decisions made]
• [Blockers resolved]

In Progress:

• [Features in development]
• [Research underway]
• [Outstanding action items]

Blockers:

• [What's blocking progress]
• [Who needs to help]
• [When you need resolution by]

PM-Specific Diagnosis Questions

1. Accomplishment Type: What's worth highlighting? (Shipped / learned / decided / shipped)
2. Metric Movement: Did metrics move? In expected direction?
3. Blocker Severity: Are blockers getting in the way? Need escalation?
4. Strategic Tie: How do accomplishments connect to Q# strategy?
5. Stakeholder Expectations: What does your audience care about most?

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When to Use

• Weekly team updates
• Monthly progress reports to leadership
• Daily standups (async)
• Project milestone updates
• Quarterly business reviews
• Manager 1:1 prep
• Stakeholder check-ins

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How It Works

Step 1: Tell Me What's Happened

Step 2: Get a Structured Update

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Step 1: Tell Me What's Happened

When the PM types /status-update, I'll ask:

Let's create your status update.

**What period is this covering?**
- Daily (standup)
- Weekly (team update)
- Monthly (leadership update)
- Project milestone
- Other: [specify]

**Who's the audience?**
- Your team
- Your manager
- Cross-functional stakeholders
- Executive leadership
- All of the above

**Update format?**
- Quick (3 bullets max)
- Standard (progress + blockers + next steps)
- Detailed (full context for executives)

Now, just tell me what happened this week. Don't structure it -
just brain dump and I'll organize it.

You can also say "pull from my recent work" and I'll scan:
- Meeting notes from this week
- PRDs you've updated
- Action items you've completed
- Conversations in this chat

---

Step 2: Get Your Structured Update

Once I understand what happened:

Got it. Creating your [weekly] status update for [audience].

I'm pulling from:
- Meeting notes: [X meetings this week]
- Completed action items: [Y items]
- PRD updates: [Z documents]
- Recent decisions: [Context from this chat]

Here's your update:

---

Standard Weekly Update Format

# Weekly Update: [Your Name] - [Date Range]

## 🎯 Key Accomplishments

**Shipped / Completed:**

- [Specific outcome with impact] - [Link]
- [Specific outcome with impact] - [Link]

**Progress Made:**

- [Initiative name]: [What moved forward and why it matters]
- [Initiative name]: [What moved forward and why it matters]

**Decisions Made:**

- [Decision]: [Impact and who was involved]

## 📊 Metrics & Impact

| Metric             | Last Week | This Week | Target | Status      |
| ------------------ | --------- | --------- | ------ | ----------- |
| [Primary metric]   | [#]       | [#]       | [#]    | 🟢 On track |
| [Guardrail metric] | [#]       | [#]       | [#]    | 🟡 Watching |

**What this means:**
[One sentence on trajectory toward goals]

## 🚧 Blockers & Risks

**Blocking me:**

1. [Specific blocker] - **Need:** [Specific help] from @[Person] by [Date]
2. [Specific blocker] - **Need:** [Specific help] from @[Person] by [Date]

**Risks I'm watching:**

- [Risk description] - **Mitigation:** [What you're doing about it]

**Nothing blocking?** → ✅ No blockers this week

## 🔜 Next Week

**Top Priorities:**

1. [Specific deliverable] - Due [Date]
2. [Specific deliverable] - Due [Date]
3. [Specific deliverable] - Due [Date]

**Meetings/Milestones:**

- [Important meeting] on [Date] - [Purpose]
- [Milestone] target for [Date]

## 💬 Discussion

**Questions for the team:**

- [Question where you need input]
- [Question where you need input]

**Where I could use help:**

- [Specific area] - If you have experience with [X], would love to chat

---

**Full context:** [Link to detailed project board / PRD / doc]

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Format Variations by Audience

For Your Manager (1:1 Prep)

# 1:1 Prep: [Date]

## ✅ Since Last Time

- [Thing you committed to] - Done
- [Thing you committed to] - In progress (70%)
- [Thing you committed to] - Blocked by [X]

## 🎯 This Week's Wins

[1-2 things that went really well]

## 🤔 Where I'm Stuck

1. **[Problem]**
   - What I've tried: [A, B, C]
   - What I need: [Your advice on X]

## 💭 Topics for Discussion

- [Topic 1]: [Why it's important]
- [Topic 2]: [Why it's important]
- [Topic 3]: [Why it's important]

## 📈 Career Development

[Any progress on goals you've set together]

## 🔜 My Commitments for Next Week

1. [Commitment]
2. [Commitment]
3. [Commitment]

Why this works:

• Shows you're on top of commitments
• Highlights wins (self-advocacy matters)
• Makes it easy for manager to help you
• Drives the agenda (you're not passive)
• Tracks career growth
• Clear commitments (accountability)

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For Executive Leadership

# Product Update: [Initiative Name] - [Date]

## Executive Summary

**Status:** 🟢 On Track / 🟡 At Risk / 🔴 Off Track

**This week in one sentence:**
[The single most important thing that happened]

## Progress

**What shipped:**

- [Feature/milestone] → [Business impact]

**What moved forward:**

- [Initiative]: [Progress and why it matters to the business]

**Key metrics:**

- [Metric]: [Number] → [Direction and why]

## Blockers Needing Leadership Support

1. **[Blocker]**
   - Impact: [What this is preventing]
   - Need: [Specific decision or resource]
   - By when: [Deadline]

_No escalations needed_ → ✅ Team is unblocked

## Looking Ahead

**Next milestone:** [Milestone] on [Date]
**Biggest risk:** [Risk] - [How you're mitigating]
**Forecast:** [On track to hit/miss goal because...]

## Request

[One specific thing you need from leadership, or "None - just keeping you informed"]

---

**Details:** [Link to full project update]

Why this works:

• Status color (🟢🟡🔴) lets them triage instantly
• One sentence summary respects their time
• Business impact, not feature lists
• Only escalates what needs their level
• Forward-looking (they care about trajectory)
• Explicit ask (don't make them guess)

---

For Cross-Functional Stakeholders

# Project Update: [Initiative Name] - Week of [Date]

## TL;DR

- **What happened:** [One sentence]
- **Impact:** [Why stakeholders should care]
- **Action needed:** [What you need from them, if anything]

## Progress This Week

**Completed:**
✅ [Milestone with impact]
✅ [Milestone with impact]

**In Flight:**
🚧 [What's being worked on] - [% complete] - [ETA]

**Next Up:**
📅 [What starts next week]

## Decisions Made

**Decision:** [What was decided]

- **Rationale:** [Why]
- **Who was involved:** [Names]
- **Impact:** [What this affects]

## What I Need From You

**[Stakeholder Group]:**

- [ ] [Specific ask] by [Date]
- [ ] [Specific ask] by [Date]

**No action needed from:** [Teams that can ignore this]

## Risks & Blockers

[Any cross-functional dependencies or issues affecting their area]

**Or:** ✅ No cross-team blockers this week

## Timeline

- [Milestone]: [Date] - [Status]
- [Milestone]: [Date] - [Status]
- [Launch]: [Date] - [Status]

---

**More details:** [Link to project doc]
**Questions?** Reply here or Slack me

Why this works:

• TL;DR lets people decide if they need to read more
• Clear on what's needed from each group
• Explicitly says who can ignore it (respects time)
• Decisions section keeps everyone aligned
• Timeline gives visibility without meetings

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Daily Standup (Async)

**Yesterday:**

- [Thing I completed]
- [Thing I completed]

**Today:**

- [Thing I'm focusing on]
- [Thing I'm focusing on]

**Blockers:**

- [Specific blocker] - need help from @[person]
- _Or:_ None

**Available for:**

- [Questions/topics people can ping you about]

Why this works:

• Super fast to read and write
• Makes blockers visible immediately
• "Available for" encourages collaboration

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Smart Features

Auto-Pull from Your Work

I'll scan:

Recent meeting notes:

• Decisions from stakeholder meetings
• Customer insights from interviews
• Action items you completed

PRD updates:

• Features moved to different stages
• Decisions documented
• Blockers flagged

Your recent conversations:

• Progress you mentioned
• Problems you discussed
• Help you received

Action items across all sources:

• Completed ✅
• In progress 🚧
• Blocked 🚫

Then I'll ask:

I found these from your recent work:

✅ Completed:
- Shipped voice task feature to beta (47% adoption in 24hrs)
- Finalized pricing page redesign
- Completed 8 customer interviews

🚧 In Progress:
- Legal review for voice feature (waiting 2 weeks)
- Onboarding redesign (in design review)

🚫 Blocked:
- API integration (need response from Legal)

**Should I include all of these, or want to adjust?**

Metrics Tracking

I'll automatically format metrics tables:

**Want to include metrics?**

I can pull from:
- Your PRDs (success metrics defined there)
- Recent conversations (metrics you mentioned)
- Manual input (just tell me the numbers)

Format options:
- Simple: [Metric] is [up/down] [X%]
- Table: Week-over-week with targets
- Chart: I can suggest data visualization

Blocker Intelligence

When you mention blockers, I'll:

1. Categorize them:

   • Waiting on others
   • Resource constraints
   • Technical blockers
   • Unclear requirements

2. Suggest escalation:

   • Who should unblock this
   • When to escalate to leadership
   • Alternative paths to explore

3. Track recurrence:

   • "This is the 3rd week this is blocked - recommend escalating"

Progress Insights

I'll flag patterns:

⚠️ **Pattern detected:**
You've mentioned "waiting for design" in 3 consecutive updates.

**Suggestions:**
- Schedule dedicated design time
- Escalate to design lead
- Explore if you can prototype yourself
- Clarify design dependencies earlier in process

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Update Frequency Guide

Daily (Async Standup)

Length: 3-4 bullets Focus: Today's work + blockers Audience: Immediate team

Weekly (Team Update)

Length: 5-7 sections Focus: Progress, metrics, next week Audience: Cross-functional team

Bi-Weekly (Stakeholder Update)

Length: Full format with decisions Focus: Milestones, decisions, cross-team impact Audience: Broader stakeholders

Monthly (Leadership Update)

Length: Executive summary + details Focus: Business impact, trajectory, escalations Audience: Leadership team

Quarterly (Business Review)

Length: Comprehensive with appendix Focus: Results vs. goals, learnings, next quarter plan Audience: Executive team + board

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

❌ Activity Lists, Not Outcomes

Bad: "Had 5 meetings, sent 12 emails, reviewed 3 PRDs" Good: "Validated onboarding redesign with 8 users - 75% said it's clearer than current flow"

❌ Vague Progress Updates

Bad: "Making good progress on the API integration" Good: "API integration 70% complete - Auth flow done, payment flow testing, shipping Friday"

❌ Buried Blockers

Bad: "Working through some challenges with the legal review process" Good: "🚨 Blocker: Legal review pending for 2 weeks, need escalation to ship by Q1"

❌ No Clear Asks

Bad: "Looking forward to feedback" Good: "Need: Design review by Wed to stay on track for Friday launch"

❌ TMI (Too Much Information)

Bad: 10 paragraphs of every task you did Good: 3 key outcomes + link to details

❌ Sandbagging Problems

Don't hide risks hoping they'll resolve. Flag them early.

Bad: Mentioning a blocker for the first time when it's already caused a delay Good: Mentioning risks when they're still manageable

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Pro Tips

1. Lead With Impact

Start with outcomes, not activities. What changed as a result of your work?

2. Use Consistent Format

Pick a format and stick with it. Makes it easier for people to scan week-over-week.

3. Be Honest About Blockers

Your job isn't to hide problems. It's to surface them early so they can be solved.

4. Make Asks Explicit

Don't hint. Clearly state: "I need X from Y by Z" or "No help needed"

5. Track Your Wins

Keep a running "wins" doc. Makes updates easier and helps with performance reviews.

6. Link Don't Repeat

Reference PRDs, docs, and previous updates instead of re-explaining context.

7. Celebrate Others

Call out teammates who helped you. Builds goodwill and visibility for them.

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Integration With Other Commands

After Meeting Notes

Use `/meeting-notes` throughout the week.
Then use `/status-update` on Friday.

I'll pull:
- Decisions from your meetings
- Action items you completed
- Blockers that surfaced
- Customer insights you captured

Before 1:1s

Use `/status-update` to prep for your manager 1:1.

I'll format it as:
- Wins (self-advocacy)
- Blockers (where you need help)
- Discussion topics (drive the agenda)
- Commitments (accountability)

For Launch Updates

After a launch, use `/status-update` with "launch update" context.

I'll include:
- What shipped
- Early metrics
- User feedback
- Next iteration plans

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Weekly Update Workflow

Monday morning:

• Review last week's commitments
• Note what shipped or moved forward

Throughout the week:

• Keep a "wins" scratch pad
• Note blockers as they come up
• Track metrics in flight

Friday afternoon:

• Use /status-update
• I'll pull from your week's work
• Review and send

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After I Create Your Update

Here's your status update!

**Want me to:**
- [ ] Make it shorter (condense to key points)
- [ ] Make it more detailed (add context)
- [ ] Adjust tone (more formal/casual)
- [ ] Create versions for different audiences
- [ ] Draft a Slack message to share this
- [ ] Add metrics or data visualization
- [ ] Flag patterns or concerns I noticed

What would help?

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Special Situations

When Everything is On Fire 🔥

# Status Update: [Date] - URGENT

## 🚨 Critical Situation

**What happened:** [Incident/crisis in one sentence]

**Current status:** [Where things stand right now]

**Impact:**

- Users affected: [Number/percentage]
- Business impact: [Revenue/reputation/etc.]
- Timeline: [How long has this been happening]

## Immediate Actions Taken

1. [Action] - [Owner] - [Status]
2. [Action] - [Owner] - [Status]
3. [Action] - [Owner] - [Status]

## Root Cause

[What went wrong - be honest and technical]

## Next Steps

**In the next 24 hours:**

- [Action] - [Owner]
- [Action] - [Owner]

**This week:**

- [Action] - [Owner]

## Prevention

[What we're doing to prevent this from happening again]

## Help Needed

[Specific escalations or resources needed]

When You're Behind

# Status Update: [Date] - Adjusted Timeline

## Situation

**Original target:** [Date for milestone]
**New target:** [Date for milestone]
**Reason:** [Honest explanation]

## What Happened

[Clear, non-defensive explanation of why timeline shifted]

## Impact

**Who this affects:** [Teams/stakeholders]
**Dependencies:** [What's now blocked or delayed]
**Mitigation:** [How you're minimizing impact]

## Revised Plan

[New milestones and dates]

## Lessons Learned

[What you'll do differently next time]

## Discussion

[Open for questions and feedback]

When You're Ahead of Schedule

# Status Update: [Date] - Accelerated Progress

## Good News

We're ahead of schedule on [initiative]!

**Original timeline:** [X]
**Current pace:** [Y weeks ahead]
**Why:** [What went right]

## Options

Given the extra time, we could:

1. [Option A] - [Pros/cons]
2. [Option B] - [Pros/cons]
3. Ship early and move to next priority

**Recommendation:** [Your suggestion]

**Need decision by:** [Date] to capitalize on momentum

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Output Integration

Where Files Go

Status updates:

• Weekly/recurring: Save to thoughts/shared/pm/reports/[date]-[audience].md
• Share: Send directly or paste into Slack/email

Link to Other Work

After creating status update:

• Share with team - Post to Slack or email to stakeholders
• Update PRDs - Feature progress gets reflected in PRD status
• Track metrics - Reference current metric values and progress
• Follow up on blockers - Schedule follow-ups on items that need resolution
• Archive for 1:1 - Use this in your manager 1:1 prep

Cross-Skill Integration

Feeds into:

• Team alignment - Status updates keep stakeholders informed
• Manager 1:1s - Status gives your manager context for your work
• Quarterly reviews - Status updates are artifacts for performance reviews
• Strategy evaluation - Metric progress ties back to strategy

Pulls from:

• /meeting-notes - Recent decisions and action items from meetings
• /prd-draft - Feature status and progress on PRDs
• /feature-results - Shipped feature performance
• /metrics-framework - Current metric values and movement
• thoughts/shared/pm/frameworks/ - Strategic context and goals

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Output Quality Self-Check

Before delivering the status update, verify:

• [ ] Outcomes over activities: Every bullet describes an outcome or impact, not just a task completed
• [ ] Specificity: Numbers, dates, and names are included -- no vague "making progress" language
• [ ] Blocker clarity: Each blocker has a specific ask, a named person, and a deadline
• [ ] Strategic tie-in: At least one accomplishment connects to a strategic pillar or OKR
• [ ] Audience-appropriate tone: Executive updates lead with impact; team updates lead with details
• [ ] Actionable next steps: Every "next week" item has a clear deliverable and date
• [ ] No buried risks: Risks and blockers are visible, not hidden in prose
• [ ] Consistent format: Matches the format used in previous updates (if any exist)
• [ ] Right length: Daily = 3-4 bullets, Weekly = 5-7 sections, Executive = 1-page max
• [ ] Human voice: Reads like the PM wrote it, not like AI generated it

If any check fails, revise before delivering.

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Remember: Great status updates make collaboration easier. They surface problems early, celebrate wins publicly, and keep everyone aligned without requiring meetings.