I have been inspired by Giles Turnbull's "Doing week notes" to produce my own weekly newsletter (e-mail) about the project of developing a portal for digital services.
My intention was two-fold:
- Be conscious as a team to understand what we achieved during the week as it provides a bit of pride and confidence
- Provide transparency and awareness to any stakeholder in our organization for a topic which is not top of mind
One of the aspects was not only to have words in the newsletter but also screenshots, graphics and similar to show what has been achieved - show & tell. Links to standard documents, specifications and presentations are always included. In general I would say that the length of the newsletter including screenshots etc. is about one to two pages
What received most attention were the memes at the top of the newsletter. This is were we got most feedback for.
My observations so far:
- Many recipients are aware of the newsletter, but not all
- Memes are important to make people open the newsletter (e-mail)
- We do not know what people read and if they read
- One manager uses the newsletter content to report back to his managers
- Some people request access to mentioned internal documents, so they must have read it
Bases on the (non) feedback the newsletter evolves. The newest addition:
- TDLR with the most important things in 2 to 3 bullet points - Inspiration via Why You Should Send a Weekly Summary Email
- Soon: short videos on the functionalities of the portal, especially those which need first a login