Weekly Status Updates
Regular communication with your sponsor is essential to the success of your project. In addition to (hopefully) weekly meetings/standups/check-ins with your sponsor, each Capstone team is required to send a brief, weekly email to the sponsor. It should take less than 15 minutes to prepare and send a status update.
Your status update contents should be whatever makes the most sense for how you are communicating with your sponsor. If your sponsor would prefer a weekly meeting agenda to be sent on Monday prior to a Tuesday Zoom call, please do that. If they would prefer a recap of your weekly meeting, including action items for the coming week, please do that. Other sponsors prefer an update that includes what you've accomplished the past week and your plans for the coming week. It will often be necessary to attach appropriate artifacts to support your progress.
Discuss with your sponsor what they prefer and do what makes the most sense for your project to communicate REAL project status.
Logistical details:
- Address the email to your sponsor and copy capstonereports@byu.edu on the email.
- The subject line for the email should be: “Team # Status Update <Date>” with # replaced by your team number and <Date> replaced by the date of the report. If you fail to include the team number and words “Status Update” in the subject line, you will likely not receive credit for the status update because it will probably get lost in the ocean of Capstone emails.
- Weekly project status updates are due by 5:00 PM every Wednesday unless an alternate weekday is agreed upon in advance with your External Relations Manager.
Grading
Weekly status updates are graded on a 5-point scale. Your External Relations Manager grades the weekly status updates and views them from the point of view of your sponsor.
5: You nailed it. It is clear that your team has been organized and working diligently. You are transparent about your project status, and you directly address roadblocks, questions, and project progress. Artifacts attached as needed.
4: Good, but it seems like a few supporting details and/or artifacts are missing.
3: The team made an effort, but key details are missing. No indication of actual progress made or what you've been working on.
0-2: Status update focuses on meaningless Capstone deadlines and terminology and does not give the sponsor much indication of what has been done for the project ("took purchasing quiz and completed safety training"), does not include clear updates on project progress, seems hurried and an after-thought, or simply lacks useful information. Missing documentation that seems like it should have been included.