Project status report is a project status document that project managers use to inform the management team or project interested groups on the progress and issues or status of the project. When writing project status report, project management needs to give detail information on the project overall situation, the issues to be resolved and progress in the key milestones of the project. Writing a concise formal project status report is one of the basic skills required for project managers.
Project Status Report Overview
Project status report needs to consider the objectives of the report. When writing a project status report, it is important to consider the target audience of the report. If your target audience cares about the overall situation of the project status, you may put emphasis on the overall status and only give brief information on the other aspects of project. If your target audience cares about the risk management part, you may give more details on the risk management part of the project. On some occasions, your status report may need to be presented to the different interest groups, you may extract the tailored information from the same report and organize it so that it can present to different audience.
Project status report needs to include all key elements. Though the status report structure may vary, it is crucial to include all key elements in your report: The overall status, the milestones and key deliverable and the remain issues. The overall status will shows the overall progress of the project compared with the planned. The milestones will indicate the major progress of the project and the issues will present the issues that need the support or resources from the management team or key stakeholders.
Project Status Report Writing
When writing your project status report, you need to consider the style and format of your report. Your report need to have a header section, reporting section and recommendation section.
In the header section, you need to give a brief summary on the project name, project background and project summary. You need to state the overall status of the project especially when you are presenting to the top management team.
In the main body part, you need to give details on the project milestones. Under the project milestones, there are key deliverable, you need to indicate whether the key deliverable has been completed, on schedule or behind the schedule. Another important things in the main body is the remaining issues to be resolved. You need to give details on the issues and indicate whether the project managers need to the support or additional resources on the issues.
In the status report recommendation section, You need to give an overall recommendation on the project. For example, will the project need additional financial support? will the key milestones completed within schedule? You may also give additional recommendation on the project future development in the section and recommend the scheduled meetings for the project management.