What is contained in a progress status report, who is it of use to and why?

The Progress Status Report:

The project status report’s objectives:

• Improve communications across organisation
• Simplify communication process
• Keep stakeholders informed
• Deliver key messages to intended target audience
• Improve organisational support for your projects or your team

It consists of general information about the project, milestone review, details of the report, issues and risk analysis, the project summary, as well as the project metrics.

General Project Info: What is the project name? Who is the project manager? What are the numbers of resources? All this information is essential. Don’t assume your stakeholder is familiar with all this information. It’s also especially useful for when you’re doing historic research for future projects.

General Status Info: You’re going to want to stamp the report with the data that will distinguish it from the reams of reports that will be streaming into the project paperwork. So, here you want to include what date the report was generated, who is the author and so on.

Milestone Review: The milestones are major phases of your project. They’re a good way to break up the larger project into more digestible parts. Here’s where you’ll note where you are in terms of meeting those milestones against where you planned to be at this point in the project’s life cycle.

Project Summary:  Short summary of the forecast completion date and costs of the project. Be sure to include the tasks that are facing issues, how those problems might impact the deadline and costs, what you’re planning to do to resolve these issues and what the results will be once you have fixed the problem.

Issues and Risks: List the issues that have arisen over the course of the project to date. Note what they are, how you’re resolving them and what impact they’ll have on the overall project. Do the same with the risks you’re aware of.

Project Metrics: It’s important to back your report up with hard numbers to prove the statements you’re making. You should have established the metrics for status reporting during the project’s planning phase. It’s impossible to know if your project is succeeding without measuring its effectiveness.

Who is it used for and why:

It’s used for stakeholders, the management, as well as the project team members, and anyone interested in the well-being and process of the project. All these groups need to know what is the status of the project and where its heading, it keeps all the parties informed, and avoids excess questioning and confusion. The stakeholders need to see if there is any profits from the project, and if it’s heading in the right direction to reach these profits. The management is interested in the well-being of stakeholders, therefore, will want to make sure the project isn’t struggling and doesn’t need any extra input or even cuts in order to complete it successfully. Finally, for the project team members it is important that they know the details of the report such as risks and issues and milestones in order to remind themselves of their goals and achievements to reach them as well as keep their head in the game, and focused on the task.