Weekly check-ins that members actually answer — four templates and a schedule

A weekly check-in is the single highest-leverage ritual in any group coaching programme. Here are the four templates we see most managers settle on, with the cadence and phrasing that gets 90%+ response rates inside Bitir.

Why the check-in is the one ritual you must not skip

In a programme where members see each other only once a week at a live session, the check-in is the only continuous thread. It tells the coach what is going on between sessions. It tells the member that someone is paying attention. And — the part most coaches underestimate — it gives the group a shared ritual that everyone participates in, which is the thing that turns "people on a programme" into "a group".

Skip the check-in for even two weeks in a row and your group will quietly lose its shape. This is true across coaching, therapy, teaching, and team management.

The cadence that works

A check-in should be:

• Weekly. Not daily (too much), not fortnightly (too little).
• Posted on the same day and time every week. Monday morning 09:00 is the most common, and generally the best. Avoid Sunday evening — members are winding down and will intend to answer it on Monday.
• Open for 72 hours. Short enough to create gentle urgency, long enough to cover members who don't check on a particular day.
• Automated. Use Bitir's recurring poll feature. Do not post it manually each week — you will forget, eventually, and the day you forget is the day the group's attendance breaks.

Template 1: Mood / Energy / Action

Three questions. The first two are subjective ratings, the third is a concrete commitment for the week ahead.

1. How has your mood been this week? (1–10)
2. How is your energy right now? (Low / Medium / High)
3. What is one specific thing you will do this week? (Free text, one sentence only)

Good for: coaching programmes with a behavioural component, anxiety groups, wellness cohorts, 1:1 coaching inside a group context.

Template 2: Did / Doing / Stuck

Borrowed from weekly stand-ups, adapted for a coaching context. Three questions, each answered in one line.

1. What did you finish last week?
2. What are you working on this week?
3. Where are you stuck?

Good for: team coaching, engineering onboarding, skills programmes, corporate learning groups. The "stuck" question is the valuable one — it creates an explicit permission to name blockers out loud.

Template 3: Numbers Only

No prose. Just numbers. Five data points.

1. Hours slept last night
2. Training/practice sessions completed this week
3. Assignments completed on time this week
4. On a 1–10 scale, how confident do you feel about this week's goal?
5. On a 1–10 scale, how are you feeling overall?

Good for: sports coaching, fitness programmes, habit-based programmes, music practice groups. Also good for members who find open-ended questions paralysing — five numbers take 20 seconds and feel concrete.

Template 4: Wins Only

One question. No scales, no blockers, no forward-looking commitments.

1. What is one win — big or small — from your week?

Good for: groups where morale is the bottleneck, community groups, faith-based discipleship groups, support groups for long-term conditions. "Wins Only" does not replace a fuller check-in for every context — but in groups where the weight of the programme is already emotionally heavy, a single-question wins check-in can be the ritual that holds the group together.

What to do with the responses

A check-in is not a dataset. It is a loop. If members feel they are shouting into a void, the response rate drops to 50% within three weeks. If members feel that their answer was seen, response stays above 90% for the duration of the programme.

The loop has two parts:

1. A public aggregate note. Within 24 hours of the poll closing, post a single group-wide note summarising what you saw. "Mood was low this week for about half of us. Here's what we're going to do about it." Do not name individuals. Do not break anyone's private answers.
2. A private one-to-one reply to any member whose answer needs it. A member who scored 3/10 on mood needs a short note from you. A member who said they are stuck on a specific thing needs a short note from you. It does not have to be long — three sentences is enough. It has to exist.

What to avoid

• Do not post the check-in manually. Use Bitir's recurring poll scheduling. Manual posts drift, get skipped, and eventually stop.
• Do not change the template mid-programme. Members have budgeted the time in their week for a specific shape of question. Changing it resets the budget, and response rate drops.
• Do not use the check-in as a report card. If members suspect you are using their answers to judge them, they will give you the answers they think you want. You will then have a data source you cannot trust.
• Do not skip your own response loop. No public aggregate note, no private replies, no trust.

A real example

Nadia Patel, a registered nutritionist in Manchester, uses Template 1 (Mood / Energy / Action) for her 8-week metabolic reset programme. Her check-in response rate sits above 94%, and 94% of her members finish all eight weeks. Full story: How Nadia Patel runs a Type 2 diabetes reset inside Bitir.