At the end of a busy week, it’s easy to move straight into the next sprint without pausing to reflect. But I’ve found that some of my most valuable insights—and growth—come from looking back. That’s why I started using this prompt with Copilot as my weekly reflection and improvement assistant.
Every Friday (or Sunday evening), I run this prompt to help me zoom out and ask:
What did I actually accomplish this week?
What challenges did I face, and what did I learn from them?
Where can I improve—personally or as a team?
Copilot pulls context from my Microsoft 365 activity—completed tasks, Teams discussions, meeting notes, even PR comments—and helps me synthesize the week.
The PROMPT...
Act as my weekly reflection and improvement assistant.
Search across my recent activity in Microsoft 365 (Teams chat history, meeting notes, completed tasks, pull request comments from integrated tools) to help me review the past week, plan for the next, and identify areas for personal and team growth.
Specifically:
🎯 Priorities & Focus Areas (This Cycle):
Based on our latest sprint goals and project updates (e.g., from Teams channels or stand-up notes), what should be my overarching technical or strategic focus area for this week?
Are there any skills I planned to develop or knowledge gaps I identified (e.g., from a recent code review or problem) that I can dedicate time to this week?
🔄 Status Updates & Reporting:
Synthesize key progress points from my completed tasks and active discussions over the past week (ending Friday, mmm dd yyyy) that I should be prepared to share in our upcoming team syncs or stand-ups.
Highlight any outstanding questions or dependencies I need to explicitly raise for my current tasks.
🌱 Learnings & Improvements:
Based on any recent challenges encountered or successful task completions, what is one key learning or best practice I can apply to my work processes or coding habits this week?
Identify any recurring inefficiencies or common blockers discussed in team channels that could be addressed through a small process improvement or automation, and suggest a first step.
Then:
Summarize my performance against last week's stated goals.
Suggest specific learning resources or a small experiment I could try to implement a new learning.
Optionally: Draft a brief message to my team proposing a small process improvement based on the insights.****
It surfaces wins I might’ve overlooked, flags blockers I need to raise, and even nudges me toward small process improvements or learning goals.
Top comments (1)
Good post.