Week 5 Stand-up: Traces

Work nobody saw did not happen. This week you learn where your manager's memory of your quarter actually comes from, and how to leave a trace in it.

25 March 2027

This week's trickPost progress in the public channel, never in a direct message.

Who paysThe person who fixed it in a direct message.

Tuesday’s lecture said memory wins. This stand-up is about what yours has left in your manager’s, and what it has not.

Bring#

A month of your own message history from any team you have worked in. Count how many of your messages were direct and how many were in a channel.

The trick#

Default to public. Progress updates, blockers, questions and wins all go in the team channel, not a direct message. Reply-all on good news. Every public post is a data point your manager and your skip-level absorb without effort; every private one is a data point that reaches nobody who rates you.

What happens#

You write down everything you did last month that a manager could have seen. Then everything they could not. The second list is longer for almost everyone. You pick one item from it and write the public post it should have had: three sentences, no adjectives, one number if you have one. Then you name the person on your team who does most of their helping in direct messages. Everyone has one. That is who this trick is paid for by.

How you know it worked#

You can tell, for any piece of work, whether it exists in your manager’s memory, and you have stopped assuming that doing a thing well is the same as being seen to.