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Weekly Status Reports

ISS produces a Weekly Status Report to provide visibility into significant work, service conditions, accomplishments, and department activity.

The report helps ISS communicate beyond individual tickets, projects, meetings, and teams.

It provides College leadership with a concise view of what ISS is doing, what is changing, where problems have occurred, and what significant work is underway.

Schedule

The Weekly Status Report is normally produced:

  • Friday during the normal College schedule
  • Thursday during the summer schedule

Updates are normally due by noon on the reporting day. Updates can be performed early.

Employees should work with their manager to understand which portions of the report they are responsible for updating.

Most report coordination and updates are performed by ISS Leadership.

Audience

The Weekly Status Report is distributed to the MCC Leadership Team and department leaders within the Finance and Administration portfolio.

Because the report is read outside ISS, updates should be written so that a nontechnical reader can understand why the information matters.

Avoid unnecessary technical jargon.

Think Governance and stick to facts without opinion.

What Belongs in the Status Report

The Weekly Status Report is intended for information with broader visibility or significance.

Routine work should remain in the ticket system.

The Communications Standard establishes that work estimated at eight hours or less should normally have a ticket, while work requiring more than eight hours should receive additional visibility through the status report and appropriate planning.

Work may appear in both systems when appropriate.

A ticket tracks operational work.

The status report communicates significant work and context.

Due Dates and MDD

Every task or milestone on the Status Report must have a due date. Once a due date is set, the due date never changes. If you need to change a due date, you create a Modified Due Date (MDD). Then, you can update that MDD as needed. Using a due date and MDD provides a way to measure how well we are estimating work and eventually get better.

Status Report Sections

Kudos

The Kudos section recognizes accomplishments and provides thanks to ISS employees.

Examples may include:

  • Exceptional customer service
  • Completion of significant work
  • Positive customer feedback
  • Employees helping one another
  • Successful project milestones
  • Significant effort during an incident
  • Other accomplishments worth recognizing

Employees should let their manager know when a team member's work deserves recognition.

Service Outages and Degradations

Significant outages and degradations are included in the Weekly Status Report.

The entry should provide enough information for leadership to understand:

  • Service affected
  • Date or period of the event
  • General impact
  • Current status
  • Significant follow-up activity

An outage or degradation remains in the report until the required retrospective and retrospective record have been completed.

Major Projects

Major projects represent significant ISS effort or substantial impact to the College.

Project updates should generally show:

Project → Current milestone or task → Due date → Current status

Updates should focus on meaningful progress, upcoming milestones, risks, delays, and decisions rather than listing every task performed during the week.

Completed items may be marked Item Closed and remain visible briefly before being removed from the report.

Enhancements and Sustainment

Each ISS team may report significant enhancement, sustainment, or stewardship activity.

This section may include work that:

  • Requires significant effort.
  • Extends across multiple days.
  • Represents meaningful service improvement.
  • Requires management visibility.
  • Does not rise to the level of a major project.

Updates should generally identify:

Team → Service → Service Offering → Work or milestone → Due date → Current status

Statistics

The Statistics section provides information about operational work and department activity.

Ticket data helps demonstrate:

  • Customer demand
  • Work volume
  • Response activity
  • Service patterns
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Operational trends

Other useful department statistics may also be included.

Statistics should help explain the work rather than simply create numbers for their own sake.

Professional Development

The report may include professional-development or training activities ISS provides to the College community.

Updates may identify:

Class or activity → Date and time → Instructor → Current status

Significant professional development completed by ISS employees may also be included when appropriate.

Staffing Updates

Open positions and other significant staffing activity may be included.

Updates should be concise and appropriate for the report's audience.

Remove Empty Sections

A section without meaningful content does not need to appear in that week's report.

The Weekly Status Report should remain readable and focused on information that provides value.

Write for the Reader

A useful status update answers:

  • What are we doing?
  • Why does it matter?
  • Where are we now?
  • What happens next?
  • Is anything preventing progress?

The report should not require College leadership to understand internal ISS terminology to determine whether something is going well.

Connection to Our Values

Communication Matters because the report provides transparent visibility into ISS work.

Integrity Matters because status reporting should accurately describe progress, delays, problems, and results.

People Matter because the report recognizes the work employees perform and helps College leaders understand how technology affects the community.

Excellence Matters because regular reporting encourages deliberate planning, accountability, and follow-through.

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