checklist · weekly client update three sections 200 words

Weekly client update · three sections, 200 words

Read in 30 seconds before sending. The discipline is consistency, not eloquence.

TIP

A client who reads ten weekly updates that look the same has a model of the team. A client who reads ten weekly updates that look different has anxiety. The shape does not change.

Shape

• [ ] Three sections, in order: WHAT SHIPPED · IN PROGRESS · BLOCKED. Same labels, every week. No new sections. because: consistency is the contract — Practice · Step 2

• [ ] Under 200 words total. If over, you are hiding bad news in volume, or you are bound for the sync, not the update. because: updates under 200 words are read 90%+ of the time; over 300 drops to 40% — Practice · Evidence

Content

• [ ] WHAT SHIPPED is past tense, in the client's language.Hebrew-name flow enabled for first cohort, not PR #341 merged.

• [ ] IN PROGRESS has dated commitments.Cohort 2 rollout — 2026-05-21, not cohort 2 rollout — soon.

• [ ] BLOCKED names what blocks AND what would unblock.Blocked on Acme's IT for VPN access; one-pager sent 2026-05-14. If nothing blocked, say so explicitly.

• [ ] Slipped dates from prior week are named honestly.Cohort 2 slipped from 2026-05-18 to 2026-05-21. Reason: [...]. because: the surprise at the next sync is the larger cost — Practice · Anti-patterns

Timing

• [ ] Same weekday, same time, every week. Friday before the team's wrap is the corpus default.

• [ ] Sent before the team logs off Friday. Monday morning is not a weekly update; it is a delayed Friday update.

Channel

• [ ] Archival channel. Email or a shared Confluence/Notion page. Not Slack-only.

• [ ] The named client contact is the recipient. Distribution list confirmed; CC leadership only if the contract calls for it.

Coverage

• [ ] The next bi-weekly sync's agenda is recognisable from the two prior weekly updates. Anything surfacing at the sync that wasn't in either weekly update is a no-surprises failure. because: the update feeds the sync — Practice · Step 5

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If a section cannot be filled honestly, send anyway and name the gap. Nothing shipped this week worth showing the client is more useful than silence.

See also

• Practice — Weekly client update
• Template — Weekly client update
• Canon — Did We Serve · The Ongoing Relationship
• Practice — SLA review — the quarterly contract conversation