Blog your Project Status Flash Reports for communicating up..
Reporting a project’s status upward shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. The technique is to boil everything down to a well structured, bullet-heavy, one-pager you can forward weekly or monthly.
Be sure you can back up what you report with more detail.
Flash reports, if timely and shared electronically, can eliminate a program management round-table meeting every week. Attendees x payrate x meeting length x 52; you do the math. Even with meetings, you get faster, more focused meetings.
The simple version:
Project Status for the Month of ___________
Project Title: Project Name
Project Description: (A short paragraph: just enough to refresh the memory)
Accomplishments:
- Planned and unplanned deliverables completed
Schedule Status:
- Plan vs. Actual. Threats to schedule. Revisions, if any.
Upcoming Tasks:
- Just a handful of the biggies.
Issues:
- The short list: risks and issues worthy of escalation, and monitoring.
Depending on your reporting style, consider this more detailed version. Remember, we’re communicating up.
Project Status Report
Project Name: Project Name / Code
Period: Start date thru end date (Week Number)
Project Manager: Project Manager’s Name, phone, email, home url
Accomplishments this Period:
- List accomplishments this period as bullets.
Scheduled Items Not Completed:
- List items/targets missed in this reporting period as bullets.
Activities Next Period:
- List proposed activities for next period as bullets.
Issues:
- Reference any new issues identified this period from the Project Issues Log.
- Reference any resolved issues this period from the Project Issues Log.
Changes to Stage Schedule:
- Identify any predicted slippage to the schedule end of stage date.
- List causes of slippage.
- Specify corrective action.
Author contact info: name, home url, project home, report permalink
Flash Reporting Tips:
- Create a channel or category for each project’s upward communication. This should be an access controlled web site: you’ll be reporting personnel issues and bad news on occasion. Not necessarily for the whole team’s eyes.
- Email a copy of your flash report to your project sponsors, including a permalink.
- Use a post title when you blog your report, making it easier to find. “Project Name – Flash Report – Week Starting 7/7/2004” lets you organize different reports
- You rarely fit everything on one page, but force yourself. Prioritizing your messages assures sponsor attention to things that matter most to you.
[a klog apart]