Week 8 Stand-up: Presence

Managers rate the appearance of work separately from the work, and the appearance is nearly free. This week you manufacture some, then catch yourself reading it in other people.

29 April 2027

This week's trickKeep the green dot on, and comment on every document.

Who paysWhoever has to be offline at five.

Week 5 was about work being seen. This week is about being seen, full stop.

Bring#

Your status history from the team chat for last week, if you can get it, or an honest guess at it. The number of document comments you left. The number of meetings you sat in with the camera on.

The trick#

Signal engagement through observable presence. Keep your status active across core hours and visibly beyond them. Leave a comment on every shared document that crosses your feed, however brief; a comment is a timestamp with your name on it. Attend with camera on. Reply to the Sunday message on Sunday. Every one of these is a low-cost signal that reads as commitment in the absence of anything better to read.

What happens#

You list five things about you that a manager could see without seeing your work. Then, in the room, you manufacture one of them: a status, a comment, a calendar block. It takes about ninety seconds. Then the harder part: you say which of the five you have caught yourself using to judge someone else, and you name one person on a real team you have been on who could not have produced it, because of a school run, a carer, a time zone or a body. They did the work and not the presence. That is who this week’s trick is paid for by. Last, the tutor points at the attendance sheet, which is a presence proxy this course chose on purpose, and asks you to say what it costs and whom.

How you know it worked#

You can tell a signal of presence from work, you have noticed that you cannot always do it for other people, and you know who on your team the signal was never available to. Assessment 2 is set this week: the groups are drawn at the end of the stand-up and each of you leaves with a packet.