Monitoring project progress as a project manager

As a project manager, there are numerous reports one has to file in, every time there is a project at hand. Actually, it is embedded in your work description and will be part of everyday activity. Whether it is reported in small or weekly bits, reporting is inevitable. Effective reports are able to convince the stakeholders to take action resulting in the project moving in the desired direction. One of the worst things that can ever happen in an organization, is to have lazy project managers who do reporting merely because they have to or have been asked to do so. The weekly report should not be made routinely without much impact. The team and the senior leadership should be able to see how the project impacts the strategies of the company and how it helps it realize its benefits. Poor reporting at times have led to candidate projects being denied funding or proposals being rejected.

Some of the most common mistakes that project managers make include

not being detailed enough about what the project details are. This denies the stakeholders the chance to understand the i’s and the j’s of the project. While reporting, the project manager should not only give account of what happened last tme and what they plan to do next, but should also indicate how this fits in with the project management plan, the risk management plan and how the roadmap leading to the deliverables look like. I have seen project managers write reports that you would have thought is a high school essay. Poor description with bare context and denying the audience the chance to get the information.

Thanks to project management standards, this can be done efficiently by following the steps below.

1. The project report while being kept simple, should at least add value by providing an overview of milestones, risks, issues and budgetary information.
2. The background of the project and why it is being undertaken is not and should not be included as part of the project. Remeber that this is execution stage and not initiation stage. The background should definitely be included as part of this report.
3. For transparency, the sponsor and project manager’s name should be included in the report
4. Reports can be boring to read especially for the senior management/executive who have less time. The port should strive to capture eveything in a single page concisely and clearly.
5. High risks that are a threat to the project should be captured, including mitigation measures under consideration.
6. Budget tracking and expenditure should be part of the budget. Is there something that will make the budget exceed beyond the exepcted amount, then it should be included as a risk instead.
7. An overview of major milestones, planned dates for this milestones and a RAG status of each milestone, helps the stakeholders to understand the project’s progression.
8. An evaluation of successes and failures should be included in the plan , to give an overview on recurring/resurgent problems so that the correct action can be taken. Successful projects can be marked for review and eventual learning to be used as a take-away.
9. In a clear and simple language, the report should note the action to be taken i.e. whether the report is for notification purposes or they are to be used for decision making.
10. Whereas it is fashionable to send reports by mails, it is a good practice to provide a summary in the body context of the mail. This is helpful especially in this current era where people use phones for reading mails.
11. Avoid sending breaking news/information on mail before communicating with the stakeholders. A mail on Monday morning about a server that crashed just hours before presentation can be demoralizing. Ensure the stakeholders are informed either face-to-face or by phone before ending mails.

So, which best practices do you follow as a project manager to ensure that the stakeholders are updated? I would love to hear.