Keeping a Project Under Control

What makes status reports so vital? Here are five reasons why regular status reporting keeps projects under control.

What’s Included in a Project Status Report?

When writing a status report, what information should you include? Effective status reports are split up into four primary sections:

Executive overview. To begin, set the stage with an executive overview. This section summarizes what the project is, what needs to get done, and how the team is performing.

Milestones and deliverables. In the second section, list your core milestones and how much progress is being made toward completing them.

Issues, risks, and changes. Third, look at any variances that might impact your original project plan: namely, issues, risks, and requests for changes.

Team progress. Finally, measure your team’s productivity. Compare your original projections with actual output. Also, detail what’s planned next so that everyone can mentally prepare.

Writing an Effective Status Report

Remembering those four sections, this step-by-step process will help you learn how to write your own effective status report.

Step 1: The Executive Overview

The first section of your report is the executive overview, which covers all critical information. As long as someone reads this section, they'll understand the report's contents. Here, include a summary and overall health.

Your identifiers are the project elements. These introduce the project sponsors and manager, project name and ID, and date. By beginning every status report with that information, you'll establish uniformity.

Write a high-level summary of the report. If an item requires attention, indicate it here. In one or two sentences, list your most prevailing goals, progress, and issues. Answer these questions:

• What are your planned accomplishments?
• What have you actually achieved?
• What are the most relevant issues and risks?

Finally, explain the overall project health. Considering components like your timeline, scope, budget, and progress, how are you doing? Provide a visual representation of that answer with a color-coding system such as green (on track), yellow (at risk), and red (needs immediate attention). Then, reflecting on that information, give a percentage of what proportion of the total project is complete.

Step 2: Milestones and Deliverables

The second section of your report details all your key milestones and deliverables. This is where you track what's been achieved thus far.

First, list your milestones and their completion percentage. Not every task is a milestone. Rather, milestones are highly significant tasks (or events) that directly impact your success. Executives can look at milestones and quickly understand the project's story and status.

Then, list the planned and actual start and finish dates of each milestone. What were your original predictions? What actually happened? If the milestone is still in progress, write “TBD” (to be determined).

Step 3: Issues, Risks, and Changes

In the third section of your report, update your readers on all variances to your original project plan. Consider the current issues, risks, and change requests.

First, document all issues. Give an update on all outstanding problems. Has any progress been made? What's the status? Then, list the new issues that have come up during this reporting period. Next to each item, mention who is working on the problem and what action they're taking.

Second, what are your risks? These are problems that might impact your project. By knowing your risks, you'll be more likely to catch them early. In this section, alert readers about any high-risk areas of the project and give them a quick overview of your risk management plan.

Finally, highlight open change requests. Considering all the mentioned issues, what are the next steps? Do you need to make any changes to your original project plan? If so, list them here. For example, you might ask to extend the budget or reduce the project scope in this section.

Step 4: Team Progress

In the last section of your report, measure your team's productivity. Looking at the smaller tasks that make up each milestone, highlight your team’s progress during the current reporting period. By detailing that information, you can track what your team is capable of accomplishing.