Quick Intro

I work for a small consulting company, Amakozi Technologies, which are doing some really amazing things! Check them out.

The Daily E-Mail

I've found when dealing with others employees it's best to send out my Daily Report. So every day at the end of business I send a big mail out to everyone I've interacted with telling them:

  • What happened during the day, this sometimes includes a actual list of task items that were completed.
  • All the parts I encountered problems with, such as bugs etc.
  • Any comments I have on any part of the project or the tasks.
  • Any feedback / suggestions I have that could be changed.
  • What I'm planning for tomorrow. This does not include everything in a long list. More of a brief overview so everyone can get to grips with what I'll be spending my time on.
  • Brief overview of what still needs to happen.

What does this accomplishes ?

Thanks to this E-Mail. At the end of every day, everyone I've worked with know exactly:

  • What I did during the course of the day
  • What Problems I encountered and what I had to do to get around them
  • My internal though pattern about the project as I've listed all my feedback and suggestions.
  • What I'll be doing tomorrow.
  • And what my general plan for finishing the task(s) is.

This is great but daily ? And what about customers ?

Yes, DAILY.

I realize this might annoy some people, but they can just ignore it if they really don't want to see it.

For the most part everyone in the team appreciates being kept in the loop. And who doesn't want to be kept in the loop ?

That brings us to customers too. I've found that customers appreciate the report too. You might want to only send this report when you are actually working on the product though. They appreciate the insight into your process and feel that you are actively trying to keep the heart of the project going with your feedback and suggestions. Which is what customer service is all about, right ?

What's the end result ?

After almost 2 years of doing this I've found that the Reporting tends to reduce friction and everyone stays on the same page.

I often get into the office and just start going. As everyone knows what I'll be doing and they replied and gave me directions / feedback for the tasks.

Of course nothing beats a face-to-face meeting but this method really reduces the need for meetings to a minimum as its all clear from the get go what's happening every day.

The final plus is the ability to look back and use your E-Mail as a saving grace when any issues pop-up or as a work log for a certain day.

Let's start reporting on our programming !