// week 01 · day 05 · fri

Assess and Communicate Delivery Health.

$/status-update · ~20 min
// 01 · what it does

Assessment, not activity.

status-update has two modes. Analyze mode produces an internal delivery assessment — workstream status, risks, blockers, dependencies, and recommended actions. Draft mode produces audience-calibrated communication leading with the assessment, not a summary of activity. The output format adapts by audience: a VP gets a concise assessment with clear risks and decisions needed; a cross-functional team gets workstream-level detail with dependencies called out.

The failure mode for status updates is describing output rather than making an assessment. "We shipped X, started Y, and will finish Z next sprint" is activity. "We are on track for Android GA with one open risk: the payment edge-case bug. If it doesn't close by end of this sprint, GA slips two weeks" is an assessment. status-update enforces that distinction — it leads with delivery health and only describes activity in service of that assessment.

Day 5 closes Week 1 because communication is the output of all the prior work. You drafted, reviewed, decomposed, and planned. Now you communicate the state of that work to someone who wasn't in the room. After this week, you've run the full writing cycle: produce → evaluate → decompose → plan → communicate.

// 02 · sample prompts

Two ways in.

prompt.basic.txt 
/status-update

Draft a status update for my VP.

We're two weeks into a sprint. The main goal was to finish the search filter feature. Search filter backend is done. Frontend is 80% complete but we hit a bug with filter persistence on iOS. We probably won't ship on time. We also finished a small bug fix for the payment flow that wasn't in the sprint goals.
prompt.advanced.txt 
/status-update

Draft mode. Audience: Dana Park (VP Product), Jordan Lee (PM, Guide Experience), Priya Anand (Head of Marketing).

Terrain context: I'm the Adventurer Experience PM. We're at sprint close.

Current state:
- Instant Book rollout: eligible guide opt-in remains at 22% despite the education push two weeks ago. Detail-to-booking conversion lift on opted-in listings is still strong at about +32%. Guide concern is calendar risk — they're worried about double-booking private clients. No change in opt-in rate this sprint.
- Android GA: still targeting launch in 6 weeks. Payment edge-case bug (AND-142) remains open — Nina W. is 80% through a fix but QA hasn't been able to reproduce the failure condition consistently. Push notification reliability improved from 91% to 97% in the latest beta build. Remaining blockers: AND-142 closed, AND-151 push notification fix shipped.
- Expanded Guide Pro analytics dashboard: in final QA. No launch blocker identified yet. Targeting beta release next sprint.
- Decision needed: the team needs to decide before next sprint whether to keep pushing opt-in education for Instant Book, build flexible Instant Book (advance-notice window), or mandate Instant Book for eligible guides above the quality threshold. Jordan and I have different views. Dana needs to weigh in.

Risks: if AND-142 isn't resolved by end of next sprint, Android GA slips to 8 weeks. If we don't make the Instant Book decision soon, the rollout expansion planning stalls.

Lead with delivery health assessment, not activity. This is going to Dana Park — she wants to know if we're on track, what's at risk, and what she needs to decide.
// 03 · reflection

Three questions.

  1. 01What did the skill lead with that you wouldn't have led with — and did the framing land correctly for the stated audience?
  2. 02Where did the draft make an assessment call you'd push back on — and what information would change it?
  3. 03What decision did the skill surface that you hadn't explicitly named as a decision in your input?
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