Weekly Status Report Template for Teams and Clients

A weekly status report that people read fits in five lines: what got done, what comes next, what is blocked and who can unblock it, which decisions were made or are needed, and what risks are coming. Put any request for the reader at the top, write it from the board rather than from memory, and send it at the same time every week. Keep two versions: a fuller one for the team with task refs, and a shorter one for the client in their words. If the board is kept current during the week, the report takes about five minutes.

This page is about the written weekly update. The daily conversation is covered in the daily standup, notes from a meeting in the meeting minutes template, and the list the report reads from in the project tracker template. Customer-facing notes on what shipped are a different document: see the release notes template.

The five lines

• Done. What finished this week, in outcome words: “Invoices now show the purchase order number”, not “worked on invoicing”. Three to five items; the full list is on the board for anyone who wants it.
• Next. What will be worked on next week, in order. It is a plan, not a promise, and the reader should be able to tell which item matters most.
• Blocked. What is stuck, on what or whom, since when, and what you need from the reader. This is the only line that asks for something, so name a person and a day.
• Decisions. Those made this week, so nobody reopens them, and those still needed, with who decides and by when.
• Risks. What could go wrong in the coming weeks and what you are doing about it. “None this week” is an honest answer and a useful one.

Write the Blocked line in the active voice. The federal plain language guidance↗ (opens in a new tab) puts it simply: “Active voice makes it clear who should do what.” “Waiting on legal” is a complaint; “Dana in legal to approve the data agreement by Wednesday” is a request someone can act on.

If your organization asks for a green, yellow or red status, add it as one word at the top with one sentence of why. The five lines carry the substance; the color only tells the reader how hard to look.

The template

Subject: <Project> weekly update, week of <Month D>

Needs from you: <one request, from whom, by when> (or "nothing this week")

Done
- <outcome, in the reader's words> (<ref>)
Next
- <what comes next, most important first>
Blocked
- <what> is waiting on <who or what> since <day>; need <action> by <day>
Decisions
- Made: <decision> (decided by <name>)
- Needed: <question> (<who decides>, by <day>)
Risks
- <risk>: <what we are doing about it>

The internal email version

For the team and your own manager, keep the refs, so anyone can open the task behind a line, and keep the names, because the team needs to know who is doing what.

Subject: Billing portal weekly update, week of October 5

Needs from you: Priya, sign off the refund wording by Tuesday.

Done
- Invoices show the customer's purchase order number (FET-112)
- Card payments no longer fail for Amex cards with a 4-digit CVC (BUG-087)
- Export to CSV includes canceled invoices (ENH-054)
Next
- Refund screen (FET-118), then the monthly statement email (FET-121)
Blocked
- FET-118 waits on the refund wording; Priya to approve by Tuesday
Decisions
- Made: statements go out on the 1st, not the last working day (Priya)
- Needed: keep PDF invoices after the portal launch? (Marcus, by Oct 16)
Risks
- BUG-087 is fixed but only tested on test cards; checking a real
  Amex payment Monday. If it fails, it goes back to In Progress.

The client version

A client reads the same week differently. They want to know what they can now do, what is coming, and what you need from them. The federal plain language principles↗ (opens in a new tab) advise writing for your specific audience and summarizing up front, and a client update is where that matters most.

• Lead with what you need from them, and when. A client who misses the request costs you a week.
• Drop refs, internal names and tool names. “Refund screen” is fine; “FET-118” is not.
• Say what changed for their customers, not which part of the code moved.
• Report blockers on your side as your problem to solve, and blockers on their side as a polite, dated request.
• Keep risks to what could affect them: a date, a cost or a decision they will have to make.

Subject: Billing portal: this week

What we need from you: approval of the refund wording by Tuesday,
so the refund screen stays on track for October 20.

This week
- Invoices now show your customer's purchase order number.
- Amex card payments that were failing now go through.
- The CSV export now includes canceled invoices.

Next week
- The refund screen, then the monthly statement email.

Decided
- Statements will go out on the 1st of each month.

To keep an eye on
- We are confirming the Amex fix with a real payment on Monday.

What to leave out

• Activity instead of outcomes: meetings held, hours logged, “good progress on”.
• Every task. Three to five Done lines; the board has the rest.
• Blame. Say what is blocked and what is needed, not whose fault it is.
• News that should have been a phone call. Bad news goes by voice first; the report confirms it in writing.
• Numbers you cannot trace to a source, and security details before a fix is everywhere.
• Other clients’ names, and anything about people’s performance or pay.
• Work closed without being built. Tasks closed as Won’t fix, Duplicate, Cannot reproduce or Obsolete are not Done.

Drafting it from the Completed lane

If the board is current, Done, Next and Blocked are already written; the report is a summary of them. There are two ways to hand the board to an AI assistant, and the method for turning finished tasks into customer notes is covered separately in generating release notes from finished tasks. A weekly report is shorter and goes to fewer people, so the prompt is simpler.

1. Copy as Markdown. Below a fenbs board, Copy as Markdown puts every lane on the clipboard as text, in the order each lane is showing: ref, priority, title, kind and note for each task. Paste it into any assistant with last week’s report. No connection needed.
2. Over MCP. Connect the assistant to the board and it reads the lanes itself. The MCP specification↗ (opens in a new tab) describes tools as functions a server exposes for the model to call; on fenbs the one that matters here is fenbs_list_items, which filters by lane.

Draft this week's status update for the Billing portal project.

1. Read the Completed lane (fenbs_list_items, lane "done").
   Skip every ref that appears in last week's update, pasted below.
2. Read In Progress and Next Up for "Next". Most important first;
   priority 1 is the most urgent.
3. For "Blocked", list tasks whose note or latest comment says they
   are waiting on someone. Name who, and since when.
4. For "Decisions", list what was decided since last week and what
   is still open on the Decisions and rules page.
5. Tasks in Completed marked "not tested" go under Risks, not Done.
6. One plain sentence per item, outcome words. Keep the refs.
7. Do not invent detail. If a task does not say what changed for
   a user, list it under "Check with me" instead.
8. Then write a client version: no refs, no internal names.

Last week's update:
<paste>

The skip rule in step 1 is what stops last week’s work being reported twice. Step 5 keeps the report honest: finished and tested are not the same thing. The pasted copy does not carry test status or how a task ended, so with Copy as Markdown, check those two on the board yourself. Read every line against its task before you send; the assistant drafts, you sign.

Keeping it to five minutes a week

1. Same day, same time. Friday afternoon or Monday morning, whichever your readers act on. A regular report is read; an occasional one is skimmed for bad news.
2. Move tasks when they move. If the board is current on Friday, the report is a read, not a reconstruction of the week.
3. Let the assistant draft; you write the two lines only you know: the request at the top, and the risks.
4. Write it when you finish the week and schedule it for when they start theirs. Gmail’s Schedule send↗ (opens in a new tab) holds a message until the time you pick.
5. Keep it in the email body, not an attachment, so it can be read on a phone and searched later.
6. If nothing is blocked and nothing was decided, say so in two words each. Do not pad the week.

On a fenbs board

A fenbs board has four lanes, To Do, Next Up, In Progress and Completed, which map straight onto Next and Done. Each task carries a kind (feature, enhancement or bug, with refs such as FET-112), a priority from 1 to 10, and a test status, so “finished but not tested” is visible rather than guessed. Decisions go on the Decisions and rules page with who decided and when, which is where the Decisions line comes from; a decision still open there is exactly the kind of request that belongs at the top of the report. History records who changed what, so “when did this move?” has an answer without asking.

What fenbs does not do: it has no due dates and no scheduled report, and it does not write or send the email for you. The assistant drafts, a person edits and sends from their own email. A client who wants to look at the board itself can be added as a member of a team board with a role your company defines, such as Client, that lets them see and comment without moving work.