effective status reports

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Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

8 Tips for an Effective Status Report by Alec Satin

Why do you prepare status reports? If your only reason for doing so is because your manager requires it, then you’ll want to read on. Well done status reports serve an important function and can improve your ability to guide your project to successful completion.

Why this post

Not too long ago a project manager explained to me that he never spent more than 5 minutes on a status report. This was fascinating and slightly horrifying to me, as this was coming from a competent, experienced PM working in a PMO which required weekly status. When I asked him to elaborate, his

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of 128 Tips for an Effective Status Report

12/8/2010http://blog.alecsatin.com/status-report/

explanation was clear and to the point.

I don’t put time into doing things which have no meaning. -PM Anonymous

Audience and Assumptions

This post is targeted for project managers working in corporate and government settings requiring some form of structured system development lifecycle (SDLC) process. This is usually associated with waterfall development. Such environments usually project managers to prepare and deliver weekly status reports. The degree of rigidity around these status reports varies. My experience in multiple shops has shown that you as a PM have the ability to bend the rules around status reports such that they do achieve their purpose. If you do status reports right, they will have an impact.

What is a Status Report?

A status report is a clear summary of how a project is progressing against its schedule, scope and budget. If it is working correctly, the intended reader can tell instantly if anything is off plan and what’s being done about it.

8 Marks of an Effective Status Report

1. Short. If printed, 1 page maximum. 2. Targeted. If you’re creating only one status report, write it for your executive stakeholder. If you

believe this is too high-level for others, then you should segment your audience and create separate reports for each.

3. Well-written. There is no excuse for sentences which make no sense. Every person who’s received status reports knows what a poorly written one looks like. Don’t perpetuate this insult to your readers.

4. Attractive. Make it pretty. Use a format that makes sense. The easier and more pleasant it is for your reader to find the information on your project, the more likely your report is to be read.

5. Newspaper-order. It used to be that reporters structured articles in such a way that the most important information came first. Less important details were listed further down. You’d do well to follow this advice when preparing your status reports, too.

6. Risks and Issues. Make sure to include the big risks and issues that could burn your stakeholder. Follow the guidance an old consultant told me years ago. “If you bring up a problem, make sure you provide the solution.”

7. Milestones. Include not less than 3 and not more than 7. Keep a few that you have achieved to show that progress is being made.

8. Status Summary. Some stakeholders will only read the 2 or 3 sentences you include here. Make them count. Make sure you update them on every report.

How to Deliver the Status Report

Most status reports are emailed. You should always when possible copy and paste the content of the status report into the body of the email. It’s good when you do this to attach a Word or PDF copy of the report for those people who use BlackBerries or otherwise prefer a formal copy. Status reports sent in the body of an email are 95% more likely to be read than those that are simply sent as attachments1.

Example



You are free to use this status report example on your projects. Some points which may make it easier for you to customize:

Word Tables are used Word Styles are your friend. To change a cell color to RED, YELLOW, or GREEN

Select the cell Change the style to Cell Red, Cell Yellow, or Cell Green Type Red (for red), Yellow (for yellow), or Green (for green)

Add or remove rows as needed for additional risks and milestones

This status report example is provided as-is. However if something seems very strange, let me know. I’ll help if I can. Enjoy!

Download an Example

Status Report Example (Word 2007) - 31.45 KB - Project Management Examples - 19-Jan-2010

Status Report Example (Word 2003) - 68 KB - Project Management Examples - 19-Jan-2010

Have a better example?

If you disagree with these points, or have a better example you’d like to share with others, sound off in the comments. Thanks! Alec

1. This is a made up statistic. :) [↩]

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Free Project Management Tool – Delivery Status Grid

{ 16 comments }

Derek Huether January 20, 2010 at 1:34 pm

Alec, from the perspective of someone who has to complete a weekly and monthly status report to a FedGov PMO, you did a great job presenting this. I’ve dealt with the so-called PMs, like the one you mentioned, who say they don’t put time into doing things which have no meaning. How very selfish of them. Maybe they should ask their stakeholders if they see the value in status reports? Any tool or mechanism which provides an active or passive communication channel to our customers has value. Your status report is clean, concise, and covers all of the required areas to communicate the current health of a project.

Best Regards, Derek

Alec Satin January 20, 2010 at 1:57 pm

Derek,

Much appreciate your kind words. Too many people in PM roles are shell-shocked by inadequate guidance, poor management and hero culture. A little support, help and information can work wonders for these folks. Others, perhaps like the ones you have come across, may just be hopeless as PMs. Perhaps they were “Peter Principled” into their positions – who knows.

Just noticed that your blog was not on the blogroll. That’s been fixed! Hope lots of readers avail themselves of your PM wisdom.

Peace, Alec

Randy Tangco January 20, 2010 at 2:58 pm

Hi Alec,

We are working on coming up with a better template for status reporting which should include budgeting info and this kind of came timely. I gave it to our people as a suggestion.

-Randy




Randy,

Glad that this helped. There’s no one perfect status report, but we all learn from each other. If you’re happy with what you group comes up with and would like to share, send it on and I’ll add it to the post.

Be well, Alec

Ryan Endres January 21, 2010 at 8:52 pm

Alec, I think you hit all of the key points. The only suggestion I have is to have a common location for the word documents (in case a team member deletes an email) and to include a couple of links within it to things like the Charter and the WBS.

Most of the items you have included could be built into a SharePoint site. This would then allow you to create a PMO view that will pull all the necessary information into one place within one or multiple views for the executives to review.

Thank you for a great Blog post,

-Ryan

Alec Satin January 22, 2010 at 10:25 am

Ryan,

Links to the charter and WBS would be excellent additions.

Have you seen SharePoint sites that function well with the views you mention? I’ve been disappointed by the poor usability of the SharePoint project sites I’ve seen. This may or may not be a reflection on the tool.

Have subscribed to your twitter feed. Glad you enjoyed the post.

Alec

Ryan Endres January 22, 2010 at 8:41 pm

Alec, The SharePoint sites that I’ve seen that have this function are project/PMO plug-ins for SharePoint. I have written up a couple of reviews on them in my blog: http://ryanendres.blogspot.com/



Thanks for the twitter add! -Ryan Ryan Endres´s last blog ..EPM Live review

Jonny | thelifething.com January 23, 2010 at 3:59 am

Having worked as a Project Manager for a number of years I would have to agree that I found no correlation between an extensive project report and a concise 5 minute one. In fact I found that if I started with an extensive one, the client would then demand that level of detail in the future without actually using the information. They just felt better about it. Make sure the first report yousend out with a new client is how you mean to go on. It makes life a lot easier.


Jonny,

It is true that changing the format in the middle of a project can generate questions from clients. What’s the old saying, “underpromise and overdeliver”?

Alec

Ronak February 2, 2010 at 11:41 am

This is a great template! I am still trying to figure out how to change the status cell’s color by typing in the name of the color. It has not been working for me.

Alec Satin February 2, 2010 at 12:19 pm

Hi Ronak,

This can be confusing. The color is set using the Word style property for the cell. 1. First select the cell (it is part of a MS Word table). 2. Change the style to Cell Yellow, Cell Red or Cell Green. CTRL+SHFT+S should open the style dialog to allow you to change the style.

You can read more about styles here: http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/ApplyAStyle.html

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist, PMP February 18, 2010 at 10:33 am



Great stuff Alec. I am not a big fan of prescriptive approaches, but your list looks really good. The one thing I want to add is my fixation with decisions and decision-making – which I believe gets to the heart of status reports. The only reason I provide status – or any information for that matter – is to enable somebody to make a decision. So the best status reports provide specific data to specific people making specific decisions. This requires Project Managers to know what decisions are being made and whether or not their project produces the data to make those decisions. It is then up to them to get said data to said decision-maker as fast as possible (following all of the recommendations you listed). I have long argued most status reports create data nobody uses – which is a monumental waste of time. Thanks for the great post.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/

Alec Satin February 22, 2010 at 2:51 pm

Hi Steve, Agree completely. Interestingly, this morning I got some harsh feedback from a project manager who *hates* this format. His main complaint was that there is not enough space for detailed information. And the purpose of that detailed information is… Still waiting for an answer to that one.

Peace Alec

Max Walker, MBA, PMP February 22, 2010 at 6:24 pm

Alec – That’s a great list for a lot of business writing, not just status reports. I’d propose formalizing in the list Steve’s idea above — focus on the decisions that the report should drive.

Status reports in my world tend to be less formal, but focused much more on high-level status: are we on track? If not, what are you doing about it? Or what needs to be done about it? And how can I help as stakeholder / sponsor?

If the reader can’t get that from the1-pager, it’s a wasted page. Max Walker, MBA, PMP´s last blog ..An Advantage of Working PMs

Graham Perry March 17, 2010 at 9:48 am

Alec – some great points.

Given that the information in the status report will be gleaned from other colleagues, what advice do you have for ensuring that they buy into maintaining and providing status information?



Graham

Alec Satin March 17, 2010 at 10:45 am

Hi Graham,

This is a key question, isn’t it? People are smart. If they are asked to put time into things which they rarely see used, they will generally shirk such things completely or do the minimum job possible.

If they understand the value of what they are doing, people will usually participate.

Alec

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