Finding Focus and Efficiency with Weekly Recaps
Dina shares her approach for self-management and communication upwards.
I started using weekly recaps at the end of 2022 when I realized a few things:
My manager oversees many direct reports in addition to myself, making her time extremely valuable. I questioned how I could ensure she remained fully informed about all activity within my product area and we spend time together focusing on the most important things.
During performance review time of the year, I found myself struggling with recency bias when writing self-assessment. I easily remembered ongoing projects but often forgot or undervalued events that occurred four months prior.
This is why I started running Weekly Recaps. At first, I thought it would help me manage up, believing that this tool is primarily for my manager's benefit. However, over time, I discovered that I am the primary beneficiary of this practice.
Let's dive in!
You can access example here.
What
Weekly Recap is a document that consists of three main sections.
Section 1: What happened last week.
Here I provide the details of significant decisions, conversations, achievements, and obstacles encountered during the week. I also include links to relevant documents such as release notes, Figma designs, PRDs, JIRA epics and sometimes even links to Slack discussions.
If I want my manager to pay attention to some particular part I need help with -I highlight the bullet points in red and bold.
Section 2: Product Health
Here, I analyze key metrics from the past week, noting any notable trends or insights. For example, if there was a spike in Monthly Active Users (MAU), I provide a brief analysis of potential causes. For example, there was a viral video in certain countries leading to increased registrations. When the reason behind a metric's change is unclear, I outline the steps for further investigation ,e.g. consulting with analysts.
This section also addresses Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and any other qualitative feedback received.
Adding qualitative feedback helps me to have a good pulse on the user's sentiment about the product and humanize the work we are doing.
Section 3: Goals for the Upcoming Week
I specify one to two objectives I aim to accomplish in the forthcoming week, ensuring a clear focus on immediate priorities.
How
Very straightforward: continuously updated Google doc! Nothing fancy.
This document is shared with my direct manager, to whom I report. I ensure my manager is aware that this link is always active and contains the latest updates.
When
I start drafting this document towards the end of the day on Friday, around 4:30 or 5 PM. I mostly focus on the section #1 and ideas for section # 3. It usually takes no more than 10 minutes.
On Monday mornings, I allocate time from 9:00 to 9:30 AM to prepare for the week ahead. I start by completing Section 2, ensuring Section 1 encompasses all significant events from the previous week, and confirming that the goals outlined in Section 3 are both sensible and achievable.
Takeaways (so far)
My managers have given positive feedback about this format, and some have even adopted it for use with their other direct reports.
Over time, I've grown to appreciate this format for several reasons:
It encourages the creation and consistent monitoring of product health dashboards (and even create them if you don’t have it!)
It compels you to pinpoint the most crucial issues requiring help and attention from your manager
It motivates commitment to small milestones, facilitating the achievement of larger goals
It simplifies the process of compiling monthly impact reports, as all noteworthy data stories and progress are already documented
Yana’s 2 cents:
I made a lot of mistakes throughout my career by not focusing enough on Optics - the way I communicate about my work results and achievements. I still tend to prioritize getting things done, which, honestly speaking, likely slows down my career. So the concept of light-touch updates which are easy to write and easy to read is absolutely fascinating to me!
Whether it’s a weekly recap, or 3P, or 5:15 report - invent your own format that works for you and your manager. On top of that, such regular updates offer one often overlooked benefit for employee-manager collaboration. Over time, these updates help your manager better understand your priorities and identify opportunities to support your growth and learning. (Reminder: A manager’s perspective is typically broader than an employee's).
❤️🔥 love the idea of adding user quotes to these updates! Reminds me of an old “I’m not a user, I’m a human” meme. In our daily rush, we often forget that behind every metric drop, bug or outage, there’s someone’s business and sometimes life being impacted.