How I Saved Our OVG Team Time by Creating a Claude Skill to Generate Weekly Project Status Decks
How I saved our OVG team time by creating a Claude skill to generate our weekly project status decks:
- Used Claude to help create a slide master with our branding.
- Slimmed our project tracker file down to four simple data tabs, with billings pulled from our Project Ops app.
- Prompted Claude to build a skill based on my desired deck outline and instructions.
- Reviewed the skill that Claude created, translating my natural language to Markdown format.
- Prompted Claude to use the new skill, generating the deck for final review and edits.6) Shared the skill with our team.
This process took ~3 hours and I started using the skill the same week. It will pay back in less than 2 weeks, not only saving at least an hour per week per client but providing an objectively better deliverable than we had before!
This is just one small example of how AI will transform the frontlines of business operations - the equivalent of doing our laundry and dishes. And with no code or specialized tools, just basic Claude, PowerPoint, and Excel.
Importantly, this skill doesn't replace or eliminate the need for project management - good management remains as important as ever. Instead, it frees up our time to focus on more important aspects like clearing roadblocks and managing expectations.
Finally, data remains the key, which is why data is paramount for our APM approach. The skill was the easy part since Claude did most of the work for me. The most challenging part was getting the source tracker clean with updated data via our mobile timesheet app and an easy-to-update scope tracker for the team.
Finance teams often play project management roles across the organization and are responsible for numerous deliverables - BOD decks, monthly reporting packages, weekly flashes... with a solid data foundation, the opportunity for AI to help carry the load is huge.
