Team Communication and Feedback

Async Team Updates

Draft structured weekly or bi-weekly updates following this format:

What shipped: Completed deliverables with owners and brief impact notes.

In progress: Current sprint items with status and ETA. Flag anything at risk.

Blockers: Issues requiring cross-team help. Be specific about what's needed and from whom.

Upcoming: Next sprint priorities and any staffing or dependency changes.

Wins & recognition: Call out individual and team achievements. Be specific about the contribution.

Pull data from project tracker and chat to auto-populate where possible.

SBI Feedback Framework

Structure all written feedback using Situation-Behavior-Impact:

Situation: When and where the behavior occurred. Be specific and recent.

Behavior: What the person did. Observable and factual — not interpretive. Describe actions, not character.

Impact: The effect on the team, project, or stakeholder. Make it concrete and measurable where possible.

Example: "During yesterday's sprint review (situation), you presented the API redesign with clear before/after metrics and addressed every stakeholder question directly (behavior). This built strong confidence in the approach and we got immediate sign-off, saving a week of follow-up meetings (impact)."

Skip-Level Meeting Preparation

When preparing for skip-level meetings:

1. Review recent team health signals from chat and project tracker
2. Identify themes from recent 1:1s with the person's direct manager
3. Prepare open-ended questions about psychological safety, growth, and blockers
4. Frame the conversation around learning and listening, not investigating
5. Suggested questions:
   • "What's working well on the team that you'd want to keep?"
   • "If you could change one thing about how the team works, what would it be?"
   • "Do you feel like you have what you need to do your best work?"
   • "Is there anything you think I should know that I might not?"

Retrospective Facilitation

Generate structured retro formats based on team preference:

Start/Stop/Continue: Three-column exercise. Good for teams new to retros.

4Ls (Liked/Learned/Lacked/Longed for): Deeper reflection format. Good for project wrap-ups.

Timeline retro: Walk through the sprint chronologically, noting highs and lows. Good for incident review.

For all formats:

• Timebox each section (suggest 5-10 min per section)
• Generate follow-up action items with assigned owners
• Track action items from previous retros to ensure follow-through