Question

To the class, How do you provide status reports or how does your company provide status reports? Is it a good way? How would you improve it if at all?

CMGT/442

Answer 1

As far as status reports are concerned, companies mostly use standardized templates. While this is fine from the point of view of standardization and efficiency, sometimes required to improve considering the effectiveness. When a particular stakeholder asks for a status report for some of the project parameters, and especially when the requirement is non-routine in nature, it is very crucial to satisfying the needs of the stakeholder objectively. Standard templates may fail in such contexts. We can use the following methodology to improve upon.

First of all, we need to understand the requirement of the stakeholder by questioning. Before presenting the laundry list for the already available status report, we should think, how best we can tailor the report for meeting the specific needs. For this purpose, the expectation sharing of the stakeholder is the must and should be taken before planning and preparing the status report.

It is important to focus on the results and not on the activities carried out in a status report. In the results, the pre-decided level, the existing level, and the gaps should be included in a concise manner in the report. Use of visual controls is encouraged in the status reports in order to help the recipient understand the exact situation. However, the use of visual aids is not to be used for deceiving he stakeholders.

Once the existing level of achievement is shown in the report, the next part should consider the reasons behind the gaps with the desired level. The reasons should be substantiated by appropriate root cause analysis but that should be included only in the annexure of the report. At the same time, it is also to the responsibility of the report preparer to reduce the stress level of the stakeholder by suggesting appropriate action plan which will eliminate the existing gaps and let the project achieve its targets.

In this way, if the report is kept concise, clear, and logically strong, the stakeholder will find confidence out of it and will be ready to extend the help (e.g. in terms of resources) for eliminating the existing gaps. It must be reminded here that though the main report should be very concise, the project manager must keep the backups and annexure as detail as possible.