Why status report

No one else puts it together and no one else wants to touch it with a ten-foot pole. You show your worth and often billable worth to the customer through the Project Status Report and the accompanying revised Project Schedule. The purpose of a project status report is to communicate the current status of the project to all members involved in the project. This document reports all parties how the project is running: what activities are completed, and what issues have risen.

If your goal is to be effective, a detailed Project Status Report can be one of the most powerful tools to have in your pocket. Moreover, this type of report can do way more then just report something. In this way, project status reports can make the planning of the future projects easier.

A project status report is essential to keeping all members informed. In this way, you will be sure that the stakeholders are on the same page, and they know the pace and progress of the project.

Every report needs to be clear and to the point. But, what should one basic project status report contain? The report sections may vary depending from the project, but the general outline includes these parts:. However, the most important part is the schedule status.

Here, you can use filters in your project scheduling software to create a subset of the schedule to cut and paste into the status report for quick review.

For example, in MS Project, you can create filters that input date ranges into to identify the following:. Nevertheless, these parts depend from the project itself, and how you want to present to the stakeholders is up to you.

If done correctly, it can be very effective in building a strong communication between you, your team, and the stakeholders. In order to get the status report productive , keep these things in mind:. Project Status Report is not a complicated document, if you know how to craft it.

To monitor and track project costs and budget utilization. To lay a solid, practical foundation for informed decision making and creative problem resolution. To acknowledge individual and team accomplishments in a timely, organized fashion.

In order to ensure that all key goals are met, status reports must provide the following types of information: Facts : Milestones , planned accomplishments, schedule utilization, budget utilization , resource utilization and related variables. Variances : Measureable differences between planned and actual status e. Analysis : Reasons for and the impact of any identified, measureable variances e.

Next Steps : Actions to be taken to respond to variances and resolve problems, as well as expected accomplishments for the next reporting period. Controlling the Project Narrative Projects do not occur in a vacuum.

What are their respective project roles and responsibilities? How will they use status information to fill these roles and responsibilities? Learn to Fast Track When it comes to managing, you need more than one approach to be consistently successful.

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Displaying only the first line of a multiline description field tends to be of little help. Interested in other useful reports? Along with the status of the project, by all means, document the status of physical target achievement.

Regarding the status of physical target achievement, you very often find percentage values delineating the stage of completion. But in the overall view of a project this project status category can never be more than a rough pointer. While the value is calculated from the completion of the single tasks, the informative value of e.

However, a plausibility check is possible. Simply compare the percentage value of the stage of physical completion with the target and actual values of work, cost and time. It is better for the project manager to indicate the status of work performed by means of concrete information on the completion of deliverables. But there is an even easier way that is also independent of the project scope.

It works well to describe the status through standardized milestones or stage gates. This has the advantage that all stakeholders will be able to tell from a single entry where the project stands. Tip: Percentage values delineating the stage of project completion are only conducive to the overall view.

The stage of completion of deliverables, stage gates, or milestones will provide more detail. Having reached the milestone M3 could mean that the specification has been produced and approved. M7 could be the start of the production. These delivery stages have to be defined individually for every type of project. Meanwhile, they can be found in all industries. Reporting milestones and their dates and variances in lists is not very clear or informative. Ideally, you historize the milestone dates are on every status date.

You will be able to derive the future trend from this on your own. Some representations also include the deadlines of the milestones. This means not only delays but also overruns become visible. View of the MTA in the event of a specification delay. In M4, there is an attempt to make up for the delay. For more detail on how to use Milestone Trend Analysis, check this article. In the most straightforward case, your project status report will compare the target values with the actual values.

You can use figures for this or a bar chart. Do not forget to list the values of the current planning i. This will reveal variances from the target baseline before the end of the project.

If you have purchased deliveries or goods and services, it makes sense to include further values, such as:. This makes for a striking increase in cost transparency. As a matter of fact, very often, a lot of time passes between commission and payment. Thus, you will achieve a detailed comparability of similar projects. In particular, when you are trying to assess why the circumstances in this project differ from others of the same category.

Tip: For the target-actual comparison, it is worthwhile to look closely: is the budget tied or free? Are work and cost internal or external items? These distinctions will help you. They will allow you to recognize problems in the making and to derive countermeasures. Counteracting such problems will be hard if all you have are aggregate amounts of work and cost across the entire project.

View Cost Trend Chart: Due to delay of M3, the actual costs are below plan baseline — the current calculated costs are actually higher in total. They are more informative than mere numbers. You obtain them from the historization on the reporting dates. To the right of the status date, continue the actual curve with the current target curve up to the current calculated finish date. In principle, listing risks in a status report makes sense. If the list is not too long.

But it is better to present a risk matrix that will always take up the same amount of space — irrespective of the number of risks. Again, this makes for better comparability. Tip: Use the risk matrix to check your projects for risks. It will allow you to identify at a glance where there is need for action. The risk matrix presents risks in a colored grid. In each cell, you enter the number of risks behind it. The focus is on the probability of occurrence and the impact of the risk.