Evening report for managers: what a daily summary should include

There are two ways to find out what’s been done: ask each person, or get a summary. The first takes up everyone’s time and depends on your memory. The second takes agreeing on it once.

Four sections

1. Done

Tasks closed during the day. One line each: what and by whom. It’s the only section that’s a pleasure to read, which is why it comes first.

2. In progress

What’s been accepted and is moving, and the deadline that was promised. No details needed: if a task is on track, it’s enough to know it’s on track.

3. Overdue

The most important section. For each task, three things: whose it is, how late it is and what the assignee said. Without the third, you’ll have to call anyway.

4. Silent

Who has been assigned a task and hasn’t replied. It’s not overdue — the deadline hasn’t passed yet — but this is exactly where an overdue task will come from in two days.

Five rules of a good summary

It reads in a minute. If the report is longer than a phone screen, people stop reading it.
It arrives at the same time every day. Say, seven in the evening. Then neither you nor the team spend the day waiting for it.
Details only for deviations. A line for what’s done, a reason for what’s overdue.
With names. “Three tasks not completed” is useless. “Yerzhan’s supplier reconciliation is overdue” is already a task for tomorrow.
No judgments. The report says what happened. The manager draws the conclusions.

Template

Daily summary, Friday

Done (6): price list sent out — Aidos; checkout display — Madina; …

In progress (3): count sheets for the inventory count — Daniyar, by Monday 13:00; …

Overdue (1): supplier reconciliation — Yerzhan, was due on Thursday. Reason: waiting for the statement from the supplier.

Silent (1): Timur — supplier order, assigned this morning, no reply.

Who puts it together

By hand. An admin, or you yourself, go through the task list and the chats in the evening. For a team of ten that’s twenty to thirty minutes a day, and the report is only as accurate as the person compiling it is careful.

Automatically. If tasks are assigned and closed in one place, the summary builds itself from them. That’s how it works in Zere: she knows which tasks were assigned, who replied “got it” and “done,” and whose deadline has passed, and in the evening she sends the manager’s report to the messaging app.

What to do with the report in the morning

A summary is only useful if action follows. There are usually three:

for overdue tasks — decide: a new deadline, help, or hand it to someone else;
for the silent ones — one short question while the deadline hasn’t passed yet;
for what’s done — say thank you. It takes ten seconds and works better than any reminder.

If you keep points, the summary also shows where they came from. More on that in our article “Points for tasks.”