💨 🚀 I Haven't Manually Created a Status Report in 8 Months

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Featured Job Listings

🏆 Top Picks of the Week (Hand-Picked, High-Impact Roles)

Role: Head of Program Delivery

Company: Marsh McLennan (Marsh McLennan Agency)
Location: Remote – USA | Leadership

Why it’s great: This is a high-visibility leadership role at Marsh McLennan, a global leader in risk, strategy, and human capital solutions. You’ll lead critical integrations and system implementations, aligning cross‑functional teams with strategic objectives. The firm is well‑capitalized and continuously investing in digital transformation.
Apply here: Head of Program Delivery
Recruiter Contact: Lauren Davis

Role: Vice President, Product & Technology Delivery Lead (Strategic Growth Programs)

Company: Marsh McLennan
Location: Remote – USA | Leadership 
Why it’s great: This VP‑level role owns delivery across flagship strategic growth programs. Great opportunity to drive high‑impact technical initiatives at the executive level, at one of the world’s most respected professional services firms.
Apply here: VP Product & Tech Delivery
Recruiter Contact: Lauren Davis

Role: Chief of Staff / GTM Engineer

Company: a37 (Applied 37) — an AI research and product lab
Location: On-site – San Francisco, CA | Leadership
Why it’s great: Applied 37 is a boutique, AI-first startup pushing the envelope in research-to-product execution. This role uniquely blends GTM (go‑to‑market) engineering with Chief of Staff responsibilities—ideal if you’re equally comfortable coding, project-managing, and advising at the executive level. Built for creative problem-solvers who thrive in fast‑paced, impact-driven environments.
Apply here: Chief of Staff

Role: VP, Client Implementations

Company: Nymbus
Location: Remote – USA | Leadership
Why it’s great: Nymbus builds banking and digital financial infrastructure and is remote‑first. This VP role leads client implementation teams, bridging technical delivery with strategic outcomes in fintech—great for leaders who enjoy banking‑tech transformation.
Apply here: VP Client Implementations
Recruiter Contact: Meredythe Miles

Bots Take the Wheel

🤖 The Status Report That Writes Itself

The Problem: You spend hours every week compiling updates that stakeholders skim for 30 seconds.

The Fix: Automate the entire status reporting process so it’s accurate, timely, and zero manual effort.

✅ Use Case 1: Multi-Tool Data Aggregation

Goal: Auto-generate a weekly executive summary with traffic-light status and trend analysis.

Steps:

1. Connect Your Tools: In Make.com, set up integrations for Jira (completion rates), Google Sheets (budget variance), Slack (team sentiment via mentions), and Asana (milestone progress).

2. Define Triggers: Schedule the scenario to run every Friday at noon to compile data.

3. Process Data: Use Make’s aggregator modules to normalize fields (e.g., % complete, budget delta, sentiment score).

4. Build the Summary: Feed the processed data into a pre-formatted Google Doc or Notion page.

5. Distribute Automatically: Configure Make to email the report to executives with a “traffic light” dashboard and week-over-week trendline visuals.

🚨 Use Case 2: Predictive Risk Alerts

Goal: Flag projects at risk 2–3 weeks earlier than manual reporting.

Steps:

1. Monitor Key Metrics: Use Make to watch for velocity drops in Jira, budget overruns in Sheets, and dependency delays in Asana.

2. Define Risk Thresholds: Example: If velocity drops 15% in 2 sprints, or budget variance exceeds 10%, trigger an alert.

3. Automate Risk Scoring: Use a simple formula to assign risk levels (Low/Med/High).

4. Send Alerts: Automatically post flagged projects in a Slack #project-health channel and email the PM with suggested mitigation steps pulled from a playbook.

👥 Use Case 3: Stakeholder-Specific Views

Goal: Deliver tailored reports so each audience sees exactly what they need.

Steps:

1. Segment Stakeholders: Tag recipients by role—Executive, Team Lead, Client.

2. Build Templates:

   • Executives: High-level KPIs + key decisions.

   • Team Leads: Detailed progress + blockers.

   • Clients: Value delivered + upcoming milestones.

3. Set Filters: Use Make or Zapier to dynamically filter and merge data based on recipient tags.

4. Automate Delivery: Generate separate PDF or Notion pages for each audience and distribute via email or Slack.

Visionary Voices 

📝 Wade Foster, CEO and Co-founder of Zapier

Why he matters

Foster built Zapier into the automation platform that's eliminated millions of hours of manual work, proving that smart automation creates competitive advantage. From humble Missouri roots, he co-founded a company that reached a $5 billion valuation on just $1.3 million in funding—one of the most capital-efficient unicorns in Silicon Valley history. Zapier now serves 2.2 million businesses, integrates over 5,000 apps, and has facilitated more than 25 million automated workflows. Foster pioneered remote-first operations before it became mainstream, demonstrating that distributed teams can build world-class products while maintaining company culture and operational excellence.

What he brings

Deep understanding of how automation transforms business operations, with practical insights on identifying high-impact automation opportunities. Foster combines technical product vision with exceptional execution discipline, having grown Zapier profitably since 2014 while maintaining lean operations. His expertise spans customer development, remote team building, and sustainable growth strategies that prioritize long-term value over short-term metrics. He brings a contrarian approach to fundraising and hiring, proving that bootstrap-minded companies can compete with heavily funded competitors through superior product-market fit and operational efficiency.

His philosophy

"We thought this idea had potential and people could really benefit from it. We're good at building software, but there was lots we didn't know about running a company," Foster explained about Zapier's early days. His approach centers on the belief that the best automation doesn't just save time—it eliminates entire categories of problems, creating space for more meaningful work.

Call to action

Study Zapier's approach to workflow automation and learn from Foster's insights on building remote-first, automation-driven teams. Essential resources include:

Key Interviews & Podcasts:

• Indie Hackers Podcast #018 - His seminal interview on finding first customers and early growth strategies

• First Round Review - In-depth discussion on contrarian business approaches

• Y Combinator CEO Interview - Lessons on scaling from startup to unicorn

Published Content:

• Personal Blog - Startup insights and entrepreneurial lessons

• Zapier Blog - Automation strategies and remote work best practices

• Inc. Magazine Articles - Management philosophy and productivity insights

Follow him on Twitter @wadefoster for ongoing insights on automation, remote work, and building sustainable businesses.

✨ Weekly Recommendations

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Questions to Ask Startups: “Stop asking founders what they’re building. Start asking the one question that exposes whether they’ll actually win.” → Read the list

Anthropic Prompt Engineering Tutorial: “Think you know prompt engineering? This interactive tutorial will humble you—and make you scary good at it.” → Try it

American Loneliness & Politics (The Atlantic): “What if your personality type secretly predicts your politics—and your loneliness? This piece will make you rethink both.” → Read it

The Most Valuable Commodity (Kyla Substack): “It’s not oil. It’s not data. The real power currency of the next decade is something you can’t mine or code.” → Find out

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Professional Development

📚The 6 Automations That Transform Delivery Teams

Based on analysis of high-performing delivery teams, these automations provide the highest ROI for time invested.

Automation 1: Intelligent Ticket Routing Set up rules that automatically assign incoming requests based on keywords, priority, and team capacity. Include automatic SLA assignment and stakeholder notification of realistic timelines.

Automation 2: Capacity Planning Alerts Monitor team workload across tools and automatically flag when utilization exceeds sustainable levels. Include suggestions for rebalancing work or adjusting timelines.

Automation 3: Dependency Tracking Automatically map and monitor cross-team dependencies, sending alerts when upstream delays might impact downstream work. Include escalation paths for critical blockers.

Automation 4: Meeting Prep Automation Pull agenda items from project boards, gather updates from team channels, and compile pre-meeting summaries. Auto-send to attendees 24 hours before meetings.

Automation 5: Risk Monitoring Dashboard Aggregate risk indicators from multiple sources—budget variance, timeline slippage, team sentiment—and automatically update stakeholder dashboards with current risk levels.

Automation 6: Onboarding Workflows Automatically provision access, create workspace folders, schedule intro meetings, and send welcome packets when new team members join projects.

Implementation Strategy:

1. Start small - Pick one repetitive task that annoys you daily

2. Map the current process - Document every step before automating

3. Choose simple tools - Zapier, Make.com, or built-in platform automation

4. Test thoroughly - Run parallel to manual process initially

5. Iterate based on feedback - Refine based on actual usage patterns

6. Scale gradually - Add complexity only after basics work reliably

TL;DR: The best automation eliminates entire categories of manual work, not just individual tasks. Start with your biggest time drains and build systems that work while you sleep.

How I can Help

Wanna chat IRL? Connect with me on LinkedIn and we can set up some time.

Free Career Guide Coming Soon!

I love feedback. If you have topics you want to see? Or thoughts or ideas on how to serve the community better, please hit reply. I read all emails.

Until next time,

The Business of Delivery

Quiet moves. Bold Careers.