How to cearly report project status?
Effective management in modern organizations relies on access to reliable and up-to-date information. Since we are focusing here on project management, the goal is effective reporting of various project status details. Periodic reports on project status within a company are typically prepared by employees of the Project Management Office (PMO).
Key recipients of project status information
If I were to point out the key recipients of project status information, they would be:
- Company Board (Steering Committees) – They require systematic access to strategic and key project information to react promptly and make necessary decisions.
- Project Sponsors – They need reports on project deviations concerning schedules, budgets, or scope. While the Company Board might rely on monthly reports, Project Sponsors often require weekly reports or even real-time updates when necessary. These real-time updates are often referred to as ad hoc reports.
- Project Managers – Despite being closest to project teams and having a strong sense of the project’s situation, they need support, especially when overseeing complex projects. Access to various detailed project reports is essential for them.
- Finance and Controlling Departments – These departments require detailed information about project budgets, budget deviations, and, for example, the distribution of expenditures throughout the project’s duration.
- Project Management Office (PMO) – The PMO requires detailed project execution reports to fully understand the ongoing situation and provide the necessary information to various organizational stakeholders. The PMO prepares ad hoc reports, weekly cross-sectional reports, and monthly project progress reports to meet stakeholders’ needs.
Companies proficient in project management have established workflows that ensure the generation of various project execution reports, typically prepared by PMO staff. In organizations lacking dedicated project management systems or having systems without advanced reporting capabilities, creating such reports becomes challenging, time-consuming, and often fails to provide sufficient information for management to make effective decisions.
So, can the process of preparing effective project reports be significantly improved? Absolutely.
If we have a dedicated and robust project management tool, it contains vast amounts of detailed data that can be automatically converted into clear reports. As soon as any data is entered into the system, an appropriate report can be updated and made immediately available to stakeholders.
Project report examples
A highly effective way to create reports needed to monitor project statuses is illustrated using the FlexiProject management tool. Examples of some possible project status reports are shown below.
The screenshot displays titles of summary folders and examples of project progress reports. Reports can be created for open or delayed tasks assigned to individual employees, all categorized in the “Project Tasks by Employees” folder. These reports may also cover risks managed by employees or deliverables they are responsible for.
A second sample report folder is “Controlling Reports,” containing various summaries related to project budget management and expenditures. It is possible to create comprehensive reports on project deviations and other aspects of interest at any given moment. Once a specific report is created, it remains available in the same format and continuously updates with the latest data.
Below is an example of a report on budget management for projects within the “Investment, technical and IT projects” portfolio.
Using the available report creator, reports can be freely customized by adjusting the order and content of individual columns.
If we want to view the roadmap of projects included in such a report, we can immediately switch to that view (as shown below).
In this report, the black line under each project represents the approved project plan, while the blue bar indicates the current forecast for the project’s completion date. This provides a strategic view of schedule deviations.
For instance, if the Controlling Department requests the PMO to prepare a year-end report on budget deviations or project expenditures, such reports can also be quickly generated using the FlexiProject system.
All the project report examples mentioned above can be exported to MS Excel for further modifications if needed.
Conclusion
The benefits of reporting through a dedicated system, as presented above, should be convincing to everyone. A project management tool like this saves PMO staff significant time while providing comprehensive information to company management about the project situation.
There’s no longer a need to create time-consuming project status reports in various formats using Excel and send them via email. A good project management program can effectively streamline the entire project reporting process.
