One of my favorite management tools that I’ve seen entrepreneurs implement with great success is the weekend update email. Every Sunday night the entrepreneur sends out an update about the past week to all employees, advisors, mentors, and investors. The email has both qualitative and quantitative information and is a quick five minute read by the recipients.
Here’s a simple weekend update email format:
- Team greeting
- Summary paragraph of the week and any highlights
- Company goals for the quarter and current progress towards them
- Sales, Marketing, Support, Customer Success, Product (individual sections for each of the major departments)
- Metrics/Goals
- Highlights
- Customer stories
- Culture stories
- Closing
Entrepreneurs that spend 90 minutes every Sunday night preparing and sending out the weekend update email will see greater focus, accountability, and alignment. While it’s a serious time commitment, the results are impressive.
What else? What are some more thoughts on the weekend update email?
David Cummings on Startups 