status-report-pipeline

Status Report Pipeline Skill

Somewhere in every org, a person spends Friday chasing five sub-team updates, translating them into one rollup, and reformatting everything because each team reports differently. The pipeline fixes the three leaks: collection (one shared format — [async-update-format](../async-update-format/SKILL.md) shape — due Thursday, in a place the assembler can harvest), translation (explicit altitude rules for what leadership needs: risks, asks, deltas — not activity), and assembly (a standing skeleton where harvested content drops into place in minutes). The chase disappears because the deadline-and-default replaces the reminder treadmill.

What This Skill Produces

• The collection design — the input format, the due-time, the single harvest location, and the missing-update default
• The translation rules — what ascends (risks, asks, notable deltas), what compresses (the green wall), what never ascends (activity logs)
• The assembly routine — the rollup skeleton + the minutes-long Friday routine that fills it
• The chase elimination — the deadline norm, the visible-default mechanic, and the escalation that isn't the assembler's job

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The chain's shape — how many inputs, from whom, to whom, at what cadence; and the current pain minutes (the before-number the pipeline gets judged against)
• What the audience actually reads — ask them, or read the replies: which sections get questions? The rollup optimizes for the read parts and compresses the skipped ones
• The inputs' current state — five formats? Prose emails? The collection format converges them, and the contributors need the why (less rework for everyone, including them)
• The authority backdrop — can the assembler set a deadline with teeth, or does the default-mechanic have to do the enforcement alone?

Framework: The Pipeline Rules

1. One input format, harvestable location: contributors post the four-line update (state/delta/asks/next) in the standing doc or channel thread by Thursday EOD — same structure, same place, every week. The format convergence is 60% of the assembly savings; the harvest location is the other 40% (no inbox spelunking).
2. The missing-update default has teeth without drama: absent updates appear in the rollup as "Team X: no update submitted" — visible, neutral, and self-correcting within two cycles, because the accountability transfers from the assembler's chasing to the contributor's silence. The assembler chases nobody; the default does the walking.
3. Translation is altitude, not summary: leadership reads for risks, asks, and deltas-that-matter — the translation rules: every 🔴/🟡 ascends with its ask · notable deltas ascend as one-liners · the green routine compresses to "on track: teams A, C, D" (the green wall is one line, not five sections). Activity never ascends; the [plain-language-rewrite](../plain-language-rewrite/SKILL.md) fidelity rule applies to state and numbers.
4. The skeleton is standing: the rollup's structure never changes week to week (top: the one-paragraph read · risks & asks table · deltas · the green line · appendix links to the raw updates) — so assembly is harvest-and-place, not compose. Target: under 20 minutes, measured.
5. The pipeline is honest about what it can't automate: the assembler's real value-add is the synthesis sentence — the one-paragraph "what this week means" that no format produces automatically. The pipeline exists to buy that sentence time by deleting the mechanical 90%.

Output Format

Status Pipeline: [inputs] → [audience], [cadence]

Collection

[The four-line input format · due: [time] · harvest location · the no-update default line]

Translation Rules

[Ascends: 🔴🟡 + asks + notable deltas · compresses: the green line · never: activity · fidelity note on numbers]

The Skeleton + Routine

[The standing rollup structure · the harvest-and-place steps · the synthesis sentence last · target minutes]

Chase Elimination

[The default mechanic · the two-cycle self-correction expectation · escalation belongs to (role), not the assembler]

Quality Checks

• [ ] Inputs share one format in one harvestable place with a due-time
• [ ] Missing updates surface visibly instead of triggering chases
• [ ] Translation rules are altitude-based, with the green wall compressed
• [ ] The skeleton is standing and assembly is timed under target
• [ ] The synthesis sentence survived as the human's job

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not chase — the visible default is the enforcement; chasing trains everyone that deadlines are suggestions
• [ ] Do not forward five formats upward — convergence at collection or chaos at assembly
• [ ] Do not ascend the green wall — leadership reads exceptions; routine is one line
• [ ] Do not summarize activity into the rollup — deltas and risks; the diary stays below
• [ ] Do not automate away the synthesis — the paragraph is the report; the pipeline just clears its runway