Weekly Project Progress Reports

A weekly project update is your secret weapon to mastering customer service and repeat business.

The context here is custom engineering, product, or on-site service projects (let’s say less than $500k).

My one-page template consists of four elements

Progress made this week — Bullet points about what was actually done this week

Customer coordination required — Where are you waiting on the customer or others? What blockers are there in the project? List them (politely) here.

Planned work for next week — Bullet points about what is planned to be completed next week. Underpromise.

Commercial update — If an hourly contract, where is the spend at and what has been accrued vs invoiced? If fixed price, an update of any coming payment milestones may be helpful.

What are the characteristics of a weekly project progress update?

They are brief and well-written. The weekly progress report should be no more than a page (except for mega-projects). Customers are busy people and they will quickly skim or not read if it is lengthy. Keep it concise. Re-write over and over until you have just what matters. Don't substitute for the lengthy meeting minutes from early that week.

They are consistent in delivery. Pick a time and day of the week and deliver the project update consistently at that set time. Use the “schedule send” email feature to ensure this consistency. If you are consistent in delivering project updates, it speaks volumes for your control of the project itself. The customer should naturally grow to expect the update at that day/time (think Pavlov's dog...).

They are async. The weekly progress update must be written and asynchronous — not real-time (meeting). The customer should be free to read (or not read) your update whenever they choose. Don’t treat them like children by requesting their time to read to them.

They are unsolicited. Whether the customer asks for weekly updates or not, it shall be sent. It is part of going above and beyond for customers. They may not even read it, but they are likely to gain comfort when they mark it as read in their inbox. Customers may think “I’ll read it if I need it” or “If I need to give an update on this project, then I’ll reference it”.

Lastly, they are transparent. You disclose how the project is really going. There is no sense in hiding trouble; hiding makes it worse. Be clear and upfront. It might sting for the customer, but the heads-up will be refreshing.

Truthfully, the weekly update is more for you than it is for them. Do you understand where the project is at? What is pending and where the action items are? Setting time aside to write an update for your project is a forcing function to get up-to-speed yourself.

At the end of the day, this is all about making the customer’s life easier and making them look good. An unsolicited, consistent weekly project update gives the customer the means to be an all-star in their position.