consulting-progress-report

name

consulting-progress-report

description

Write and ship the recurring client-facing progress report — the contractual bi-weekly/monthly "what did I get for my money" update to the engagement sponsor (often the payment condition). Use on "write the progress report / bi-weekly update for {client}", when a report due-date hits, or after a delivery period closes. Assembles from the client's activity log, verifies every claim against primary sources, drafts in the locked house format (TLDR of before→after arrows, quick notes, next two weeks, saving-for-{platform}, needs, per-stakeholder goals), gates through consulting-copy-reviewer role-playing the actual sponsor plus a fresh-eyes condense pass, then Sid's critique loop. NOT the light session recap (consulting-stakeholder-update) and NOT the quarterly value review (consulting-quarterly-value-review) — this is the contractual cadence deliverable between them.

Consulting Progress Report

The report's job, in order: (1) a busy non-technical sponsor reads ALL of it and understands it, (2) they feel the hire is paying off (trust up, "I'd repeat this to a peer"), (3) they start wanting the next, bigger scope — seeded by the deferred list, never pitched. Every choice below serves those three.

Voice: consulting-copy-writer (no em-dashes, plain words, digits). Process guardrails here are the lessons from the 2026-07-03 Seeker report #1 build (exemplar: as-sent verbatim + Sid's final-edit notes in clients/seeker-music/04-delivery/progress-reports/2026-07-03-report-1.md).

Inputs (gather before drafting)

1. clients/{client}/04-delivery/account-activity-log.md — the canonical session-by-session source. If sessions are missing from it (nightlies sometimes only update the dashboard), backfill entries first.
2. Verbatim transcripts in clients/{client}/meetings/transcripts/ — verify every number, count, quote, and state-claim against these, not against AI summaries.
3. The client AGENTS.md Reality section — reconcile; Sid's confirmed POV outranks inference.
4. 04-delivery/running-lists.md (client-surfaceable) — the deferred list feeds "Saving for {platform}".
5. Never pull from ## Expansion watch or any internal-only strategy file into a client artifact.

Evidence rules (non-negotiable)

• No unaudited numbers. If the only figure is the client's own qualitative estimate, publish it as an attributed quote: Time saved so far: "days of work" (Darren's estimate).
• No promises you can't guarantee. "The next report opens with the measured number" got cut by Sid: never commit a future deliverable/number in a client artifact.
• Don't overclaim state. In-build stays "(still in build)"; local-only stays "(on {name}'s machine for now)"; org-level install ≠ per-user install — say which.
• Client-corrected facts outrank derived ones. When Sid corrects a count (sessions, workflows), his number ships and the resolution gets logged back to the activity log/dashboard.
• Unreconciled facts stay out. Conflicting counts (e.g. 3 catalog numbers on file) → write around the number. Ambiguous names (Steven vs Stefan) → address the group ("you and the exec team").
• Money always carries its control context ("caps with request-based top-ups, Darren at $1,000/mo. Spend stays visible as more people come on"), so the sponsor never discovers run-rate one bullet at a time.

The format (locked with Sid, 2026-07-03)

Internal front matter (To/From/Period/Date + a DRAFT line deleted on send), then the email body:

1. Greeting — "Hey {sponsor}," + logistics note only if needed (e.g. work-email-down). One-line framing: "Below is the progress report of the last two weeks: where things were, where things are now, what's next, etc." + "Quick video: {Loom URL}" (1-minute walkthrough).
2. TLDR (two weeks ago → today) — 5–7 bullets, each a readable before → after phrase around a literal →. No category labels ("Darren:", "Owned AI:" — banned; the compartments read as ambiguous). Backticks on system names (Finance OS). Lead with the person/adoption story ("{champion} typing into chat → building in Code"), put ownership on the deliverables ("15 {Client}-owned finance skills"), end on the value line (time saved).
3. Quick notes — 2–3 one-line items that matter but need no explanation (spend policy, dashboard).
4. The next two weeks — only real commitments, named people, one line each ("Continue weekly sessions with X to improve {OS}", "Start weekly sessions with Y...", "Plan sessions next month with Z..."). Attribute claims ("per Nicole, he's one of the heaviest users").
5. Saving for {platform} — the expansion seed. "Work outside the current scope, worth doing when we take over {platform}. Not building these yet; keeping a running-list:" then plain-named connection bullets (no "MCP"/"write-back" jargon). This is restraint-framed value, never a pitch.
6. Needs from {client} — only asks they must act on NOW, each routed to a named owner, "when you're ready" on the non-urgent, gloss unknown tools ("Granola (meeting notes)"). After the asks, the no-pressure line: "Nothing above needs a decision yet, but if I can get my hands on {docs/APIs} now, I can start mapping how {platform} will connect to everything we're building."
7. What we're working towards — the closer: one goal per named stakeholder, quoted-style, the sponsor's goal LAST ("Evan's Goal: '...increases speed and revenue without adding headcount.'"). This ends the read on where everyone is headed, in the sponsor's own success language.

Length bar: the sponsor finishes it. One page. If a bullet needs a paragraph, it's the Loom's job.

Process

1. Backfill + verify. Update the activity log from any unlogged sessions; verify the load-bearing claims against transcripts (quote timestamps in your working notes).
2. Draft to clients/{client}/04-delivery/progress-reports/{date}-report-{N}.md with the DRAFT status line. Commit (drafts are episodic memory too).
3. Gate 1 — the sponsor's eyes. Run consulting-copy-reviewer with the persona tightened to the actual sponsor (never technical), loaded with engagement context (fee, why they hired, their board's priorities, team names, how busy they are). Add the report-specific questions: too long / where would you stop? was the month's fee well spent, which line? 0–10 would you recommend, what raises it? what makes you want to expand scope? Triage: accept jargon flags, buried wins, trust dips; reject any note that needs an invented number.
4. Gate 2 — fresh-eyes condense. A zero-context subagent sweeps for combinable bullets, redundancies, and state contradictions (the "installed org-wide" vs "team installs next" class). Merge; keep every fact.
5. Sid critique loop. His corrections are ground truth (they often carry NEW facts — log those to the dashboard/lists). Iterate in place; commit each round with a why-first message.
6. Ship kit. On request: a white-background HTML paste source next to the report (dark-theme rich-text copies carry background colors into Gmail; the HTML file pastes clean — delete it after send), a ~90-second Loom script (repo → skills → dashboard → design system → deferred list + asks), and the Slack variant (a one-line "dropping the report I emailed @here too" wrapper; the email-logistics opener stays email-only).
7. After send — file it. Replace the file body with the as-sent verbatim (+ an internal-notes section recording Sid's final edits as skill feedback), mark ✅ SENT in the title and the schedule table, add a sent entry to the activity log, refresh the dashboard (report due-date, new commitments, new asks/balls, any new facts Sid introduced), sync the running lists, and commit.
8. Compound. Diff Sid's sent version against the last draft; fold recurring edits back into this skill and the client's _TEMPLATE.md.

Instance vs. skill (keep the boundary)

Client specifics (the champion's name, the platform name, which connections are deferred, the $ cap) live in the client's _TEMPLATE.md and reports. This skill owns the process, the format shape, the evidence rules, and the voice — improve the skill when the lesson generalizes, the template when it's client-shaped.