Good managers with a P&L always know their numbers. If asked, managers can recite them from memory. But some managers don’t always run off a budget. For Software Engineering Managers, their numbers are project statuses.

I manage quite a few projects. Some are large in scope while others are a single Jira ticket. A few projects are a subset of large projects run by others. Keeping track of all the statuses really became a pain.

Now I use a simple format in my digital notebook of choice (in this case, an HTML file). I keep a running list that I update whenever I get a status from my team.

Project Name

A description of the project

YYYY-MM-DD The current status

During my daily shutdown, I copy any updates from notes I jotted down to the status document. I always have an up-to-date status report document if needed.