The most widely used status reporting framework is PPP which stands for Plans, Progress, and Problems. The compiled weekly report is then shared with leaders, team managers and co-workers. It’s used by companies like Skype, eBay and Facebook.PPP template has 3 categories:<ol><li>Progress. Employee’s accomplishments, finished items and closed tasks for the period ending.</li><li>Plans. Goals and objectives for the next reporting period. These should become Progress next week.</li><li>Problems. Challenges. Items that are stuck and can’t be finished. Problems often need help from someone else, not just the employee.</li></ol>

PPP weekly reporting

The most common weekly planning and <a href="https://weekdone.com/weekly-status-reporting" dir="ltr">status reporting</a> framework<h3>OKRs set goals. Weekly plans remind you to achieve them.&nbsp;</h3>Objectives and Key Results need to be actionable. This means that if a team sets an OKR, they should also have some ideas or plans how to drive it forward. If we set a goal and we can’t think of how to achieve it, then this goal is not actionable. While creating your OKRs, discuss what could be done to drive the Key Results. This way you will see if this goal even makes sense.&nbsp;In addition to evaluating the achievability of an OKR at the beginning of the quarter, planning should take place on a weekly basis. While OKRs are set on the team level and all of the team members will work towards achieving these results, executing plans takes place on the individual level. This is how individuals contribute to the team goals: everybody is working on their plans, ultimately contributing to the progress of the whole team.&nbsp;<figure><img width="680" height="435" src="https://static.weekdone.com/wp-content/uploads/Preparing-for-Weekly-Check-ins-3-1024x655.png" alt="OKRs and PPPs"></figure>The planning aspect of OKR execution is often very underestimated. It’s seen as unnecessary reporting or something that is just time-consuming but not needed. So why should your team use PPPs?<h4>Planning helps to manage time and prioritize&nbsp;</h4>“We didn’t have time for that” is one of the most common answers we hear during our coaching calls with customers when we discuss why some goals had almost no progress. It happens to us at Weekdone as well.&nbsp;We always have more work than we are able to do. That means we need to plan our week and prioritize our plans so that important things are not abandoned or overlooked.&nbsp;We all have repetitive tasks and business-as-usual things that, depending on our role in the company, take some or a lot of our time. On average, people can invest 20-40% of their time into improving the way they work or pursuing new ambitious goals. Both of these areas are the focus and main purpose of OKRs.&nbsp;If we do not plan and prioritize, then day-to-day work just takes over and improvements to drive the team forward are not done. The team will never improve this way.&nbsp;OKRs are there to make sure you know what you should focus on. Remember, there will always be a million things to do, and that doesn’t mean that you should work on everything at the same time.&nbsp;<h4>If we do not plan to work on it, how will it be done?</h4>The headline says it all… If people in your team do not plan their actions towards achieving the OKRs, would the results ever be delivered? It’s hard to do something that you do not think through. The team needs to focus on planning so individuals can commit to what needs to be completed each week.&nbsp;<h4>Transparency is for awareness not for control</h4>A lot of leaders think that they do not want to read individual plans of their subordinates. It happens because they see weekly check-ins and reporting as something that is used for controlling people. However, visibility of the individual planning process is not for controlling and petty micromanagement.&nbsp;Planning and progress sharing is not something people do for their manager, it’s something they do for the team. Team members need to see what others are working on to offer timely feedback and keep up with the updates. Visibility of key plans and priorities is the first rule of nurturing a proactive attitude, maintaining teamwork and keeping healthy enthusiasm.&nbsp;When seeing each other’s plans, team members can offer help when it’s needed, have a better overview of what’s happening, and learn more from each other’s experience. This is how you make sure that your team knows what they are doing to drive your team goals forward.<h4>Weekly status reports save time on meetings</h4>When your team members are keeping their PPP forms updated, this saves everybody time and energy. There’s no need to spend extra time in meetings to share what has been done. Everybody is already up to date by viewing each others’ plans and achievements on the go, and meetings can be focused on the things that need further discussion. Also, problems can be reported when it’s needed and solved on the go instead of bringing all of the problems up during the meeting (which can be quite exhausting).&nbsp;<h4>If we mark down our actions, we can check if they bring results</h4>Who wants to keep putting their energy into something that actually doesn’t make any difference? Nobody. It’s frustrating not to see results improving if you are putting your energy into them. When everyone writes down their plans towards their goals and the team has weekly checks-in together to discuss what brought results and what didn’t, you can quickly see what is worth your time and effort. If no one is aware of what is being done, it’s impossible to know what brings the results, and how to improve them.&nbsp;

Progress, Plans, Problems (PPP) is a best practice management technique for recurring (usually weekly) team progress and status reporting.

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The most common weekly planning and <a dir="ltr" href="https://weekdone.com/weekly-status-reporting">status reporting </a>framework

OKRs set goals. Weekly plans remind you to achieve them.

Objectives and Key Results need to be actionable. This means that if a team sets an OKR, they should also have some ideas or plans how to drive it forward. If we set a goal and we can’t think of how to achieve it, then this goal is not actionable. While creating your OKRs, discuss what could be done to drive the Key Results. This way you will see if this goal even makes sense.

In addition to evaluating the achievability of an OKR at the beginning of the quarter, planning should take place on a weekly basis. While OKRs are set on the team level and all of the team members will work towards achieving these results, executing plans takes place on the individual level. This is how individuals contribute to the team goals: everybody is working on their plans, ultimately contributing to the progress of the whole team.

The planning aspect of OKR execution is often very underestimated. It’s seen as unnecessary reporting or something that is just time-consuming but not needed. So why should your team use PPPs?

Planning helps to manage time and prioritize

“We didn’t have time for that” is one of the most common answers we hear during our coaching calls with customers when we discuss why some goals had almost no progress. It happens to us at Weekdone as well.

We always have more work than we are able to do. That means we need to plan our week and prioritize our plans so that important things are not abandoned or overlooked.

We all have repetitive tasks and business-as-usual things that, depending on our role in the company, take some or a lot of our time. On average, people can invest 20-40% of their time into improving the way they work or pursuing new ambitious goals. Both of these areas are the focus and main purpose of OKRs.

If we do not plan and prioritize, then day-to-day work just takes over and improvements to drive the team forward are not done. The team will never improve this way.

OKRs are there to make sure you know what you should focus on. Remember, there will always be a million things to do, and that doesn’t mean that you should work on everything at the same time.

If we do not plan to work on it, how will it be done?

The headline says it all… If people in your team do not plan their actions towards achieving the OKRs, would the results ever be delivered? It’s hard to do something that you do not think through. The team needs to focus on planning so individuals can commit to what needs to be completed each week.

Transparency is for awareness not for control

A lot of leaders think that they do not want to read individual plans of their subordinates. It happens because they see weekly check-ins and reporting as something that is used for controlling people. However, visibility of the individual planning process is not for controlling and petty micromanagement.

Planning and progress sharing is not something people do for their manager, it’s something they do for the team. Team members need to see what others are working on to offer timely feedback and keep up with the updates. Visibility of key plans and priorities is the first rule of nurturing a proactive attitude, maintaining teamwork and keeping healthy enthusiasm.

When seeing each other’s plans, team members can offer help when it’s needed, have a better overview of what’s happening, and learn more from each other’s experience. This is how you make sure that your team knows what they are doing to drive your team goals forward.

Weekly status reports save time on meetings

When your team members are keeping their PPP forms updated, this saves everybody time and energy. There’s no need to spend extra time in meetings to share what has been done. Everybody is already up to date by viewing each others’ plans and achievements on the go, and meetings can be focused on the things that need further discussion. Also, problems can be reported when it’s needed and solved on the go instead of bringing all of the problems up during the meeting (which can be quite exhausting).

If we mark down our actions, we can check if they bring results

Who wants to keep putting their energy into something that actually doesn’t make any difference? Nobody. It’s frustrating not to see results improving if you are putting your energy into them. When everyone writes down their plans towards their goals and the team has weekly checks-in together to discuss what brought results and what didn’t, you can quickly see what is worth your time and effort. If no one is aware of what is being done, it’s impossible to know what brings the results, and how to improve them.

PPP: Progress, Plans, Problems – Weekdone

PPP weekly reporting

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