Daily Updates
What
In our fully remote environment, staying connected and informed is crucial. One of the ways we can ensure transparency, and collaboration, and keep everyone in the loop is by utilizing the #dailies channel in Slack for sharing daily updates.
Who
All the Product Team members are expected to share daily updates in Slack (#dailies channel). Due to the nature of their work, Leadership Product colleagues might share less regular, but more consolidated updates.
Why are daily updates essential?
Here’s why it’s relevant:
Transparency: By sharing our daily activities, progress, and challenges, we create a transparent work environment. It allows everyone to understand what’s happening across the team, fostering trust and alignment.
Collaboration: Daily updates enable us to collaborate more effectively. When we know what each team member is working on, it’s easier to identify opportunities for support, provide feedback, or even discover potential collaborations.
Accountability: Sharing daily updates holds us all accountable for our tasks and goals. It helps us track progress and ensure that we’re moving forward on our projects. Plus, it motivates us to stay focused and productive.
Remote Communication: In a fully remote setup, communication can sometimes be a challenge. The #dailies channel serves as a centralized hub for communication, making it easier for us to stay connected despite the physical distance.
Celebrating Wins and Learning from Challenges: Sharing daily updates isn’t just about reporting tasks; it’s also about celebrating our wins, big or small, and learning from the challenges we encounter. It allows us to acknowledge achievements, share best practices, and support each other in overcoming obstacles.
Improves team morale: Team status updates don’t single out blocked team members. Plus, everyone feels like they are contributing to the team.
By embracing the #dailies channel and actively participating in sharing our daily updates, we strengthen our team collaboration, enhance transparency, and ultimately drive our collective success.
What this looks like in practice?
Daily updates in the #dailies Slack channel are mandatory for the whole Product Team.
You can find some examples of prompts to answer in your daily update below (Feel free to answer how many you wish. Also, feel free to find another prompts that make more sense to you at the moment when you write your update):
- Are there any blockers or impediments preventing you from doing your work?
- What are your commitments for the day? (if you choose to share your update at the beginning of your day)
- What were your achievements of the day? (if you choose to share your update at the end of your day)
Bad update vs. good update examples
| Bad update | Good update |
|---|---|
| Stuck on the login bug all day. | Investigated a login bug that prevented authentication; the root cause is that Safari doesn’t support the validation library. Tomorrow I’m going to find a solution that supports all browsers and add automation tests. |
| I had 8 meetings today and didn’t have time to do anything else. | The 1:1s with the engineers today were so exciting! We are planning the Q2 Goals, and we had interesting discussions on how to separate Goals from Grow areas. We finally agreed to use an approach inspired by Lattice’s suggestion (with a link). I will use the same approach to set up my Goals tomorrow. |
| Continuing to work on the same thing as yesterday. | Making progress on [ticket number], today I addressed the testing, by adding 75% of unit test coverage of the new feature. |
| Hey team, today was pretty busy. I did some coding, had a meeting, and did some research. I’m calling it a day now | Today, I completed authentication logic for backend API endpoints and fixed a token validation bug. Collaborated with Roman to refine the user login interface, aligning it with our styling guidelines. Also, provided development updates in the squad traffic lights meeting. |
| - Did Easy Llama course - Met with Phil - Worked on #8819 | - - Talked with Phil about project boards and Product/Programs work. We settled on having one board and labels on tickets to help Programs teammates view/filter as they need to. - Worked on #8819 and got the refactoring done on the UI code. Next up will be to add a few fields to the API so I can show the data on the screen. UI tests have been frustrating taking a long time to run locally |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What if the channel becomes too noisy?
A: We all work towards the same goals and mission, and the daily updates you share help everyone feel assured that they are on the same page and reduce the chances of misunderstandings and miscommunication. For that reason and all the benefits we listed in the Why section, we can’t consider updates noise, but bits and pieces of the amazing work we do together! You can always skim through updates that are too technical, for example, or that you are already aware of.
Q: Why would other teams care about my updates?
A: Because we should collaborate and care about our team, not just about our individual work. Your updates may bring new opportunities, ideas, concerns, feedback, and more. It also aligns well with being a good communicator who’s helping us improve the team’s accountability.
Q: Are the daily updates mandatory?
A: Yes, they are mandatory and also a brilliant opportunity to engage your colleagues, to motivate them, and enhance our collective output. This isn’t just for authority’s sake – if everyone takes daily updates seriously, we will be more productive, aligned and connected as a team.
Q: What happens if I don’t share updates daily?
A: The goal is maintaining efficient collaboration and ensuring we’re all moving towards our objectives. By not communicating with the team, we are affecting collaboration and transparency, at the very least. For each of us, our work is not only about the technical stuff but also about being a good team player, effective communicator, and more. Failure to provide updates may affect your evaluation, potentially impacting opportunities for growth and advancement within the team.
Q: How often should I post updates in the daily channel?
A: At least once per day, but for some people, more than one update could also work. For instance, their commitments for the day and then what they actually achieved.
Q: What is the best time to post updates on the daily channel?
A: Whatever works best for you. But, usually, posting the update could be either one of the first activities you complete or one of the last things you do before leaving for the day. Here’s some interesting reading on the topic.
Q: How is this measured in my performance review?
A: Managers will share regular feedback throughout the year about the quality and consistency of your updates. Preferably, by the time performance reviews happen, you will already have received plenty of feedback and identified areas for growth that you committed to working on. Effective communication and reliability are part of our core competencies, and accountability is a big deal we are trying to get better at as a team, so status update consistency will be part of the calibration toward those competencies.
Q: How detailed should my updates be?
A: We shared some examples of updates and some prompts that can help you draft your daily updates. Keep in mind that status updates demand clarity and specific information that is valuable and informs others.
Q: What should I do if I have no significant updates for the day?
A: If you don’t have significant updates about what you did, you can always share updates about how you feel about it. Maybe a task was simply straightforward and it doesn’t require many updates. Or maybe there were a number of difficult, unforeseen issues that came up, and you didn’t progress as much as you wanted. Maybe you had a super productive day. Tell the team how you feel; the channel is a safe space to speak honestly! (Pro tip: Feelings Wheel)
Q: Is it okay to post challenges or roadblocks in the #dailies?
A: Absolutely, someone can help you after reading your update. If you think of someone in particular who could give you a hand, just tag them!
Q: Should I respond to other team members’ updates in the daily channel?
A: If they tag you or you want to reply to something specific about their updates, it is highly encouraged to do so! You can also react to their messages with an emoji if you want to.
Q: What sort of feedback should I expect on my updates?
A: Managers should provide direct, regular, both positive and constructive and helpful feedback on status updates provided by the team members.
Q: I always forget to share my daily updates. How can I remember to share them?
A: Tips for remembering to share the daily updates:
- Create a Recurrent Task in Google Calendar
- Set a Reminder in Slack
- How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones
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