Weekly Business Report

The Weekly Business Report is a document or digital dashboard summarising key performance indicators (KPIs), achievements, issues, and strategic insights gathered over the week across all of the products in an ecosystem.

Purpose

The weekly business report serves as a snapshot of business operations related to software product development and market performance. Its key objectives are:

• To provide a regular update on the progress of business objectives and product development milestones.
• To highlight critical issues and risks that may impact the project or business operations.
• To facilitate data-driven decision-making by offering insights into market trends, customer feedback, and product performance.
• To enhance communication among team members, stakeholders, and departments by sharing relevant information in a consistent format.

Format

A weekly business report includes all of the relevant product metrics for each of the included products as well as the core business metrics. In order to be able to view the information quickly each metric should have a consistent format and be presented in a clear and easy to understand way.

• Multiple timelines
  • Trailing 6 weeks: enables a zoomed in focus on the most recent performance.
  • Trailing 12 months: enables a zoomed out focus on the long term performance.
• Multiple timeframes per timeline
  • Current Period
  • Period last year
• Multiple data points for current period
  • Actual
  • Target
• YoY Growth trend: Enables a quick identification if the product is growing or shrinking which is harder to do when comparing two time periods.
• Core values summary: A list of the core values for the metric.

Source: Working Backward, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

Anti-patterns

• Activity Focussed: Reporting on activities rather than outcomes, which dilutes attention from operational focus.
• Lack of Consistency: Varying the format or metrics reported each week, making it difficult to track progress over time.
• Delayed Distribution: Sending the report late, diminishing its relevance and utility for timely decision-making.