Weekly Check-In — Template

The Weekly Check-In is the smallest unit of work in the SHIP cycle. Four short answers, posted in the team's Google Chat Space, once a week. It is what the Logbook reads to produce the weekly digest. It is also what end-of-cycle briefs are drafted from. Skip a week and the system goes blind.

§ I · The templateFour questions, every week

Weekly Check-In Cycle [N] · Week [N] · [Team name]

✓Tried

What concrete moves did we make this week? (Bullets fine. Dates help.)

★Learned

What did we learn? What surprised us? What confirmed what we expected, and what didn't?

?Stuck

What is blocking us? What are we unsure about? What might be wrong with our hypothesis?

→Needs

What do we need from another team, a chief, the superintendent, or the CIO? Be specific.

§ II · A real exampleWhat a good check-in looks like

Example · Communications team · Cycle 01 · Week 03

Tried

Drafted welcome letters using the AI assistant for 12 of the 24 incoming students this week (Sep 8–12). Tested two variations — one with school-specific paragraph appended, one without. Sent both, randomly assigned.

Learned

Drafting time dropped from ~28 min to ~9 min — already past our 40% target. Spanish drafts needed less revision than English ones, which surprised us. Two families replied with thank-you notes, which we didn't expect this early.

Stuck

We can't tell yet whether the school-specific paragraph variant outperforms — too small a sample. Also our survey response rate is sitting at 22%, lower than hoped. Worth thinking about how we measure satisfaction.

Needs

Could use a 15-min sync with the Tech team — heard they're working on something similar for IEPs and we might be solving the same problem twice. Also: can someone help us figure out why our survey response rate is low before next week?

§ III · What makes a check-in usefulHow to write one in five minutes

Tried — name moves, not intentions. "We piloted the tool with 12 teachers" is a move. "We thought about piloting" is not. The Logbook reads "tried" to understand what actually happened this week.

Learned — include the surprises. The most useful check-in lines are about what didn't go as expected. They flag for the Logbook (and the cabinet) where the hypothesis might be wrong or where something larger is going on.

Stuck — be honest, not heroic. "Nothing" is almost always wrong. If a team has truly nothing stuck three weeks in a row, the bet is probably too small. The Logbook surfaces patterns of "stuck" across teams.

Needs — be specific. "Need help" is too vague. "Need a 15-minute sync with the Tech team about IEP scheduling" lets the Logbook surface a Match flag in the next digest. The more specific the need, the faster it gets met.

§ IV · The cadenceWhen & where

Where: Posted in the team's Google Chat Space — the canonical home. Not email, not a doc, not a chief's inbox. The Logbook reads from the Space.
When: Every Friday by end of day, or every Monday morning. Pick one and hold it for the cycle. Consistency matters more than which day.
By whom: One team member writes it, but the whole team weighs in before it posts. Five minutes of group consensus.
How long: Two or three sentences per field. If you find yourself writing essays, you're either covering the wrong week or trying too hard.

§ V · How the Logbook reads itWhat happens to your check-in

Every Monday, the Logbook reads the previous week's check-ins across all SHIP teams and assembles the weekly digest. Your "Tried" gets pattern-matched against other teams' moves. Your "Learned" feeds the running list of cycle findings. Your "Stuck" gets cross-referenced against other teams who might have a fix. Your "Needs" becomes a candidate Match flag.

Skip a check-in and the digest goes thinner. Skip two weeks and the Logbook flags the team as silent — surfaced to the team lead first, then the team's chief at 21 days.

The minimum-viable check-in On a hard week — a sick lead, a holiday, a crisis — a check-in can be as short as one sentence per field. That is still better than no check-in. The Logbook can work with little. It cannot work with nothing.