Communication is very important in all aspects of a project – from discovery and requirements gathering, to the final implementation.
A Project Status Report is just one tool that CoreSolutions has as an avenue for providing a formal communication of the current status of a project, not only to our clients, but our own management staff.
There are basically three main components of a Project Status Report:
- Overall – starting with the over-arching health of the project. This is typically measured using percentages, start/planned/actual end dates, and graphical representations. At this level, it’s easy for someone to see if the project is still on target or is in jeopardy of missing key deadlines or milestones.
- Milestones – those originally identified in the project or implementation plan. Milestones are key accomplishments with established target dates, and the status report should reflect which tasks are complete and/or in-progress with percentages assigned to each.
- Issues – any outstanding issues that need to be resolved are presented in the project status. These are items that come up during the project life cycle that need to be addressed in order to bring it to a successful completion.
Just remember that a project status should not be too verbose. Project stakeholders are looking for a brief summary of progress and highlights of any challenges that need to be addressed.
