Five tips for more effective status reports

Recently I was interviewed on one of my favorite podcasts, The Bigg Success Show, and I provided George and Mary-Lynn with 2 Tips for More Effective Project Status Reports.

Below I provide three additional tips for a total of five tips that will help you write status reports that people will actually read!

Tip #1 - Know your audience!
Ask yourself these questions:

- Who will be reading your status report? Team members? Management? Your customer?

- What level of detail does your audience require? Don't make your audience dig through lots of details to get the information they really want.

- How frequently does your audience need updates - Daily, Weekly, Monthly?

Tip #2 - Focus only on the exceptions!
Look at just those issues that have changed since your previous report. This will give your audience just the information that has changed since last report. This will also help keep your report short and concise.

Tip #3 - Make your report easy to read!
Allow your audience to easily scan and find those details that interests them the most
Use "Stoplight Reporting" on bulletpoints to communicate progress:

- Green means everything is going according to plan.

- Yellow means this particular item needs to be watched.

- Red means that action is required.

- Use Blue to indicate a particular issue has been resolved since the last report.

- Use short bullet points instead of paragraphs of prose to communicate information.

- Use tables to list the status of items like milestones, budget information, or product material cost.

Tip #4 - Stay consistent!
This means staying consistent in how you present your information as well as when you distribute your status reports.

You want to stay consistent in how you present your information so your audience knows exactly where to find the information they need each time they read your report.

To keep the sections in your report consistent:

- Use a table of Project milestones with Planned completion dates and actual completion dates.

- Provide a bulleted list of accomplishments since last report.

- Provide a bulleted list of upcoming events and goals for the coming week or month.

- Provide a bulleted list of current issues or risks

- Provide a a table or list of links to other project documents like previous status reports, your project charter, your project budget, and project background information.

Publish your status report consistently:

- Send it out on the same day by the same time every time.

- If you send it out on Friday's by 4pm, always send it out on Fridays by 4pm.

- With many mail clients, like Microsoft Outlook, you can even schedule the exact time when your status report is sent out. However, mail clients have not figured out how to time travel, so you can't send out a status report in the past. So if you are going to be late publishing a status report, send out a short email to your audience letting them know when they can expect it.

Tip #5 - Ask your audience for feedback!
- Ask how could your status reporting be improved?
- Are your readers satisfied with the information you are providing?
- Could you provide any additional information?
- Is the frequency in which you publish your status reports adequate?
- Or Is it published too frequently and your audience has added you to their spam filters?

For a limited time, you can download a free Status Report template, along with some other great templates, from www.pm411.org/templates.