Project Management Tips

What are the critical characteristics of an effective status report? We generate them each week as a tool to communicate project progress, report critical issues, and state the overall health of the project. As project managers deliver different projects within an organization or across different organizations, the project status templates vary in format, length and detail. Low process maturity organizations may or may not have a project report template. In some organizations, a verbal update is all that is required to provide status. In other organizations, stringent metrics and project progress reporting is required. Mature project organizations have standard reporting templates that are used across projects and programs. However, these same project organizations may have a different reporting format for the project team, their PMO, and executive management.

After 12-plus years of generating status reports, I’ve gleaned a few useful tips and critical elements that every project status report should contain.

Content

Effective project status reports communicate status information correctly and are easy to interpret. A mix of subjective and objective metrics will help communicate a balanced view of the project. All too often subjective interpretation is applied without including any objective data like schedule variance, cost variance, or milestones counts. The following content provides a balanced view of project status information:

1.       Project Achievements

2.       Project Milestones with baseline and forecast dates

3.       Late Tasks and Actions

4.       Issues

5.       Risks

6.       Key Decisions and Change Requests

7.       Objective Metrics

a.       Schedule Performance Indicator

b.       Cost Performance Indicator

c.       Deliverable Counts

8.       Subjective Assessment

a.       Project Status Color

b.       Project Trend

9.       Next Steps

Project achievements provide a few details on the accomplishments from the previous reporting period. The project milestones section includes the critical path tasks with forecast and baseline finish dates. Each of these milestones can be color coded to reflect late (red), at risk (yellow),on-target (green), or completed (blue) status. Including the dates in the status report for critical tasks help align status with the project schedule. Another section of the status report should identify key late tasks and provide the action plan.

Projects all have issues, risks, and changes. These sections identify the critical issues, risks, and change that need to be communicated. The status report shouldn’t list the entire issue, risk, or change register. It should only include the key items that need stakeholder decisions. The key decisions section includes any approved change requests or important decisions since the last reporting period.

The objective metric section should include any technical performance indicators like schedule or cost performance indices. Deliverable counts can also be reported to indicate the units of work completed. If the project requires additional metrics, a separate slide can be developed.

Status reports typically use a “traffic light” approach to report the overall status with a red, yellow or green color. This subjective status should be based on objective and subjective data from the project. When asked, “What’s the project’s status,” providing a specific color can convey if action is required. Traffic light project trend indicators can also be used to indicate the project’s direction. Finally, the next steps section provides key actions with target finish dates for the next few reporting periods.

An effective status report conveys all the critical information on a single piece of paper. Portfolio managers are responsible for many projects and wading through packets of information is inefficient. Restricting the project status report to a single page requires the project manager to focus on the critical project details and highlight the important issues, risks, key accomplishments, and overall health. If project sponsors require more detail on specific issues, risks, and accomplishments, a formal presentation deck can augment the one-page status report format.

The one-page status report is also useful for program and portfolio reviews. Before program execution, the program level PMO should define the program governance and status reporting procedures and templates. Each project in the program is responsible for completing a one-page status report each week. These one-page status reports are quickly and easily assembled by the PMO into a program status deck.

Transcribing project-level status information into an overall program-level status report is redundant. The format may change depending on the target audience; however, reusing the project-level status reports will eliminate rework and shorten the amount of time required to build new presentations.

The tool used to develop a one-page status report depends on the organization’s standards. I’ve developed status reports in PowerPoint, Word and Excel depending on the template provided. Microsoft Word is an excellent word processing tool but it lacks presentation capabilities. Excel is a poor substitute for a word processor, but is adequate for a project status report and supports macros and formulas used to evaluate project data. PowerPoint is optimal for presenting a status report; however, formatting can become tricky if one section of the report exceeds its boundaries.

My personal preference is to use Excel and paste the image into a PowerPoint presentation for portfolio- or program-level reporting. In my current program, the organization uses a one-slide PowerPoint template that is easily transferred into a program status report. The program has more than 20 projects across three major releases, and the meeting logistics require a quick and effective snapshot of each project.

The ideal situation for status reporting is to use a project portfolio management system such as CA’s Clarity, Microsoft Project Portfolio Server, or IBM’s Rational Portfolio Manager. There are many others. These portfolio management tools allow project managers to publish project data once and generate project status reports with a click of the button. Reporting project status shouldn’t burden the project manager with different reporting formats. Project organizations should enable the project managers to touch the data once and report the project performance data in a variety of formats depending on the audience.

Read the original article published at Projects@Work at: http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/articles/238465.cfm.  The template for the one page status report can be downloaded here.