Great post. I love the idea of using weather metaphors. Very innovative.

I receive status reports from all my staff and we send status reports to all our clients – every day.
Is there an automated tool that helps?

If I’m understanding what both you and Roeland are saying, there is a glaring absence of info about “how the team is doing.” Great point. To date, I’ve always handled that communication ad-hoc and as needed (like when things are stormy). I’ve also had few senior managers proactively ask me about how my team is doing on an ongoing basis. Those conversations have always been (when initiated from above) at/before review time, or during ad-hoc “time to see how everyone’s doing” exercises. I definitely haven’t supported folks who wanted that information in the context of a project – so it never occurred to me to include it in this status report.

I’d love to hear more from y’all (and others!) about your experiences. This may be a great opportunity to incorporate that info and educate the readers both about the status and the importance of knowing it. So chime in!

I agree with you about the importance of maintaining morale / excitement, and addressing dissatisfaction. I’ve never seen that handled via a status report before, and personally, I’ve always addressed that in one-on-one conversations.

Can you tell us a bit about how the dynamics of informing / expressing work for you in status reports? I’ve always assumed (I know, that’s never good) that people would be uncomfortable expressing their concerns if they were being publicized. One thought would be an aggregated “team is content” or “team is fired-up” status.

Thanks again, and let us know!