Official skill · Operations and admin

Weekly 3P update (Progress, Plans, Problems)

v1.0.1 · Updated 4 November 2026

Writes a weekly Progress, Plans, Problems update a reader takes in within 60 seconds, with numbers and last week's plans accounted for. Use it when you owe leadership or a channel a weekly team or project update.

Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.

When to use it

• You owe leadership or a channel a weekly team or project update
• A client wants the short version of where things stand

What you give it

• Team or project name and dates
• Slack posts, closed tasks, notes, or metrics
• Last week's update (optional)

What you get

A 4-line update: a heading with team and dates, then Progress, Plans, and Problems in 1 to 3 sentences each.

How it works

1. Set the scope Confirm the team name and dates. The bigger the team, the less granular the items: a squad reports "shipped the export button", a company reports "closed 4 new enterprise deals".
2. Gather from where the work happened Prefer posts with many replies or reactions, docs many people opened, closed tasks, and non-recurring meetings that mattered (reviews, customer calls). Ignore routine chatter.
3. Pick what matters Progress: things shipped, milestones hit, numbers moved. Plans: the 1 to 3 things that are top of mind for next week. Problems: what slows the team: blockers, missing people, a deal that fell through, a dependency on another team.
4. Check last week's Plans Each plan from last week shows up as done in Progress, or as a Problem with the reason it slipped. Don't let a plan disappear silently.
5. Write 1 to 3 sentences per section Matter-of-fact, no adjectives doing the work of numbers. Name the metric and its change ("trial sign-ups 120 → 145"), not "strong growth".
6. Add one ask, if there is one If a Problem needs a decision or help from the reader, say who and what in the Problems line.

The SKILL.md

The whole file, as your AI reads it. Download it

---
name: weekly-3p-update
description: Writes a weekly Progress, Plans, Problems (3P) update for a team or project that a reader takes in within 60 seconds, from Slack threads, task lists, docs, or notes. Use when someone asks for a weekly update, status update, 3P, team update for leadership, or "what did we do this week".
license: Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE.txt). Adapted from anthropics/skills internal-comms.
---

# Weekly 3P update (Progress, Plans, Problems)

A 3P update tells leadership and neighbouring teams what moved, what's next, and what's in the way, in under a minute of reading. It is written for people with some context on the team but not a lot. Short, factual, and with numbers where the team has them.

## When to use

- The weekly team or project update to a manager, leadership, or a company channel.
- A status update for a client or partner who wants the short version.
- Not for a launch announcement or a long project review: those need more than three lines a section.

## What you need

- The team or project name and the period covered (usually the last 7 days for Progress and Problems, the next 7 for Plans). If either is missing, ask once.
- The raw material: Slack posts, closed tasks, docs, meeting notes, metrics. If you can read the team's tools, pull from them; otherwise ask the user to paste what to cover.
- Optional: last week's update, so Plans from last week can be checked against this week's Progress.

## Steps

1. **Set the scope.** Confirm the team name and dates. The bigger the team, the less granular the items: a squad reports "shipped the export button", a company reports "closed 4 new enterprise deals".
2. **Gather from where the work happened.** Prefer posts with many replies or reactions, docs many people opened, closed tasks, and non-recurring meetings that mattered (reviews, customer calls). Ignore routine chatter.
3. **Pick what matters.** Progress: things shipped, milestones hit, numbers moved. Plans: the 1 to 3 things that are top of mind for next week. Problems: what slows the team: blockers, missing people, a deal that fell through, a dependency on another team.
4. **Check last week's Plans.** Each plan from last week shows up as done in Progress, or as a Problem with the reason it slipped. Don't let a plan disappear silently.
5. **Write 1 to 3 sentences per section.** Matter-of-fact, no adjectives doing the work of numbers. Name the metric and its change ("trial sign-ups 120 → 145"), not "strong growth".
6. **Add one ask, if there is one.** If a Problem needs a decision or help from the reader, say who and what in the Problems line.

## Output format

Keep exactly this shape. One line of heading, then three labelled sections.

```markdown
[emoji that fits the week] [Team name] ([dates covered])
**Progress:** [1–3 sentences: shipped, achieved, measured]
**Plans:** [1–3 sentences: next week's top priorities]
**Problems:** [1–3 sentences: blockers and asks, or "None this week."]
```

## Example

**Input (notes):** Billing team, 10 to 14 March. Shipped annual plans on Wednesday; 18 customers switched so far. Refund flow redesign is in review. Next week: send the annual plan email to all monthly customers, start invoicing PDFs. Waiting on legal for the new refund wording since last Monday; we need their answer by Wednesday to ship the redesign next week. Last week's plan "fix VAT rounding" got done Tuesday.

**Output:**

```markdown
💳 Billing (10–14 March)
**Progress:** Annual plans went live on Wednesday and 18 customers have switched. The VAT rounding fix shipped Tuesday. The refund flow redesign is in review.
**Plans:** Send the annual plan email to all monthly customers and start work on invoice PDFs.
**Problems:** The new refund wording has waited on legal since 10 March; we need an answer by Wednesday to ship the redesign next week.
```

## Checks before you send

- [ ] The heading names the team and the dates.
- [ ] Each section has 3 sentences or fewer, and the whole update reads in under 60 seconds.
- [ ] Every claim of progress has a number, a date, or a named deliverable.
- [ ] Each of last week's Plans is accounted for in Progress or Problems.
- [ ] Every Problem that needs help names who should act and by when.
- [ ] No fact appears that isn't in the sources you read.

## Common mistakes

- Listing activity ("had 6 meetings about pricing") instead of outcomes ("agreed the new price; it ships 1 April").
- Hiding a slipped plan. Readers remember last week's update.
- Writing Problems as complaints with no ask. Say what would unblock it.

---

Adapted from the `internal-comms` skill (examples/3p-updates.md) in github.com/anthropics/skills, Copyright 2026 Anthropic, PBC, licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE.txt). Changed by Fluxenic Inc.: rewritten for non-engineering teams, with steps, a plan-carryover check, an example, and a checklist.

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Changelog

• v1.0.1 · 4 November 2026 · Example: the input now says the annual plan email goes to all monthly customers and that legal's answer is needed by Wednesday to ship the redesign next week, so the output no longer states either without a source.
• v1.0.0 · 4 November 2026 · First release, adapted from anthropics/skills internal-comms.