The Status Skeleton

Six headings, same order, every week. Fill it by hand, or hand it to your Status Writer and fill in the parts it flags. Either way, every "on track" needs a witness and every quiet workstream gets named. Tape it up. Next week is one paste, not a rewrite.

How to use it: gather the week's updates. Fill the six headings from what people actually reported. Anything you can't place goes under Unclear, by name. Then run the five checks and send it yourself.

ProjectWeek ofSent by

1Headlineone sentence, built from the worst true thing

2Status by workstreamon track · at risk · blocked · unclear, plus the reason

3Moved this weekonly what someone reported, and who reported it

4Blockedwhat is stuck · who is waiting on whom · since when

5Needs a decisionwhat you need from the reader, and by when

6Unclearevery workstream with no update this week, named. Monday's first questions.

Show it or flag it.

The evidence ladder

A status is a claim. This is what each one has to show.

On trackA named person reported progress this week. Not last week. Not "probably."

At riskWork is moving, and something could slip. Say what, and when you'd know.

BlockedStuck on someone. Name who is waiting on whom, and since when. Never "minor delay."

UnclearNo update this week. Say so, by name. Silence is not progress.

Never "done""Almost." "Should be." "Planning to." "Talked about." "Basically." A mention is not a commitment, and a plan is not a finish. If the notes don't show it finished, it isn't.

Five checks before it goes

A generated status is not a sent status

Every "on track" traces to something a person reported this week.

Every number and date came from an update, not from the tool.

Nothing blocked has been written up as a delay.

The unclear list is written out, not quietly dropped.

A person is sending this, and their name is on the call.

Five checked, it goes. One unchecked, it doesn't go yet. Not "close enough, it's Friday."

Before you paste real updates into an AI toolYour company's approved tool, updates that stay inside: as-is. A public tool: use updates that are already fine to share, or scrub them first. No client names. No numbers you'd protect. No one else's private details. Board, legal, HR, a bid you haven't signed: not in a public tool at all. Not even to summarize it.

The red lineA person always makes the final call. The tool gathers and shapes. It never calls a status nobody reported, never invents a number, never softens a blocker, and never sends. If the updates don't say it's on track, the status says unclear.

The Status Writer isn't a prompt you paste every week. It's a workspace (your tool calls it a Project or a Gem) that already holds the rules; you open it and paste only the updates. The workshop that builds it — the standing instruction that stops and asks, the escalation line, and the setup page for each tool — lives in the Library. More free companions: the Fence Card, the Recap Card, and the Drift Check Card.

A person always makes the final call.

Acute Incite · powered by theCommons Academy · Flash Mission · Project Status Report in 5 Minutes · The Status Skeleton (free printable)