We are always looking for ways to improve our internal processes and communication in our teams and the company at large. To facilitate that across the company we have a dedicated channel on Slack, #checkin.
As a daily practice every member of the company should post an update everyday at approximately 9:00 AM Eastern.
This update should contain the following parts:
- What project(s) you are working on today, what you expect to accomplish, and where are you working
- If you are working at home or in the office today
- Any time off coming up in the coming week or extended time off in the next 30 days
- Optional: Something you are thankful for today
- Optional: Anything that is on your mind that would spark edifying discussion with team members
Here is an example:
*Today*: Project ABC (production configuration, Background Processing), Lunch w/ Ken @ :home:
*OOO*: This Friday, 10/1 - 10/6
*Thankful for:* Son started crawling
*OMM:*
* LCAD with no react
* Which lawn mower brand is best?
In Almanac, there is a checkin generator function that will copy text to your clipboard with some auto-formatted checkin boilerplate that includes upcoming out of office dates and google calendar events. The configuration for this exists in the Time Off Planner page within Almanac. The checkin generator can be customized to include default day summaries and much more.
A Slack App has also been added to the RoleModel Slack server that conveniently brings that checkin boilerplate text from Almanac right into Slack with the simple /checkin command.
If you want to have your google calendar events automatically included in your checkin boilerplate, make sure you have connected to google calendar within the time off planner in Almanac.