Weeknotes

Doing weeknotes is an excellent compilation by Giles Turnbull. My compilation of the compilation:

What weeknotes can be

I understood weeknotes as a personal, individual thing to do. Giles openes the view on how weeknotes can be useful within an organization. E.g.:

• keep colleagues up-to-date with your team´s work
• share expert knowledge
• make behind-the-scenes work visible
• earn trust
• share your thinking
• communicate your intent

Status and history

Having the notes published provides not only a current status, but over time a tool for remembering, to see in retrospective what worked well and what not.

Radiate intent

Weeknotes can also radiate intent. Giles quotes Elizabeth Ayer:

Don´t ask forgiveness, radiate intent

Once you´ve build up a habit of posting regularly your intent, like „This is what we are planning. If you want us to change course, say so!“, your environment will start to expect your weeknotes signaling what´s coming next.

A tool for recruiting

Weeknotes can even be a tool for recruiting. If your weeknotes are publicly available, you provide a window into your team from the outside. People can develop a sense of the topics your team is concerned with and how being part of the team might be.

Practical advice

• Aim low and do not put hours and hours into writing the notes. Writing weeknotes shouldn´t take long. Set aside 30 minutes and do it.
• Write as the week goes.
• Bullet points is better than prose. 10 bullets is plenty, 3 is also okay.
• Don´t worry too much about the weeknotes structure.
• Sometimes there´s not much to say, and that´s fine.
• If you treat weeknotes like a burden, they´ll feel like a burden.

Weeknotes will fail

Weeknotes will fail if you put barriers in place to slow them down, like

• It´s required to approve weeknotes by a communication department.
• Weeknotes are ghost-written by a professional writer from outsite the team.
• The middle-management will edit the weeknotes so that only the good bits are published.