<aside> 📋 Frequency: Trigger-Based | Time: 30 min | Trigger: Before and after every client session

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Without a consistent session cycle, client work becomes reactive — you show up underprepared, the session wanders, and the action items from last time either get rediscovered mid-conversation or quietly dropped. This SOP closes that loop. It structures the 15 minutes before every session and the 15 minutes after, ensuring each touchpoint builds on the last instead of starting over.

Prerequisites

• Client's engagement file open and current — including SOW, prior session notes, and open action items
• Your calendar blocked with 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the session
• Any deliverables due at or before this session confirmed as complete (see: Deliverable Production Process SOP)

Procedure

1. Open the client's engagement file and scan the action items from the previous session. Flag any that are overdue or at risk before the call starts.
2. Run the Session Prep Brief skill with the client name, session number, engagement phase, and the three most important open items as input. Review the output — it generates a focused agenda, key questions, and context on where this engagement stands.
3. Confirm your session goal: one concrete outcome you will leave with. If you can't name it before you start, reread the prep brief and sharpen it.
4. Run the session. Take notes in your preferred format — raw is fine, you'll clean them in the next step.
5. Immediately after the session, run the Session Recap Writer skill with your raw notes and the session goal as input. Output: a clean session summary and a list of action items with owners and due dates.
6. Run the Action Item Tracker skill with the recap's action items to update the master list. Confirm owner and due date for every item. If an action item is yours, block calendar time now.
7. File the recap in the client's engagement folder. Send a copy to the client within two hours of the session ending — not the next day.

Expected Outcome

You'll have a filed session summary, an updated action item list with owners and due dates, and a client-facing recap sent within two hours. The next session prep cycle starts from a clean, current record — not from memory.

<aside> ⚠️ Common mistakes:

— Skipping the pre-session prep when you think you know the client well enough — familiarity breeds assumption. Action items drift, scope creep goes unnoticed, and you walk into the session without a clear goal. Three months in, neither of you can articulate what progress looks like.

— Writing the recap the next day or not at all — the decision context evaporates within hours. What felt clear in the session becomes ambiguous by morning, and the client fills the gap with their own interpretation.

</aside>

<aside> 📋 Frequency: Trigger-Based | Time: 30 min | Trigger: Before and after every client session

</aside>

Without a consistent session cycle, client work becomes reactive — you show up underprepared, the session wanders, and the action items from last time either get rediscovered mid-conversation or quietly dropped. This SOP closes that loop. It structures the 15 minutes before every session and the 15 minutes after, ensuring each touchpoint builds on the last instead of starting over.

Prerequisites