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Project status reporting is important because it keeps many of our stakeholders informed as to the status on the project. The challenge is to keep project reporting from being a project unto itself. This can be achieved by integrating the normal day to day processes within the project with the project reporting, so that it virtually happens on its own.

7 Ways to make Status Reporting a Breeze

Here are several ways to incorporate status reporting at the backend of your normal day to day project management processes, and thus, not make a project out of project status reporting:

1. Have a visual project schedule available at all times in a format for easy mark up as progress is made. For example, include an updated Gantt Chart in your status report.
2. Team members need to track their time for a variety of different reasons. Find a way to enter it once and get all the output they need for the various tracking purposes.
3. Integrate your risk reporting system with your status reporting. Presumably, you have already created lists of potential risks with probability, impact, and response plan. Simply add a column to the matrix for risk occurrences, which can be repurposed onto the status report.
4. Keep your key goals in the front of your mind and make sure that you have broken them into steps that can be achieved within one to four weeks. If you do that you will have a constant stream of goals and achievements that fit into the context of your overall project schedule, and it will be very easy to report on them.
5. Maintain a commonly accessible portal site which you update with the latest documents and products of your project. This is helpful for reference for anyone who wants to drill deeper from an actual status report. Keep a public area for that site and then also keep a private area for more internal project team use.
6. Use a blog as a project management status tool, because it records thoughts like a status report, all along the way of the project. A reader can actually follow a timeline through chronologically perusing through blog entries. These Blog entries can also provide documentation of discussions, findings, initiatives, and key decisions. The greater beauty of a blog is that it is much less formal than a status report, and the frankness of the entries is likely to show through.
7. Maintain a project wiki. A wiki can provide a commonly accessible store of editable documentation related to your project, and can actually be part of the product of your project. It provides tangible evidence and a good reference point, and you can simply link to it from any formal status report.

Status Reporting Is Not a Project!

It is important to not make a project out of status reporting. Status reporting should simply be part of the process of running a project and should not be much of a separate task to do. It should simply and naturally fall out of the process of progressing on your project on a day to day basis. Otherwise, it becomes a detriment to project progress rather than a useful tool for team members and stakeholders, involvement and information.

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John Reiling, PMP

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