12.5. Report Frequency

How Often Should We Report?

You could do a quick internet search and get conflicting reports on how often progress reports should be made. All of those resources will likely agree on the frequency with which progress reports are made, but this depends on the size of the project and the phase of the project you’re in.

Most projects will need progress reports on at least a monthly basis. If the project is shorter term, you may need to provide weekly reports. For a project like an international conference, because the planning starts right after the previous conference ends, you would likely provide monthly reports to start and then move to weekly reports about two months before the event begins. Once the team has moved to the conference site to begin set-up and preparations, it would be wise to have a daily/nightly meeting to update the whole team on how things are going.

We discussed a variety of communication tools in previous chapters, and progress reporting is no different. While you may be asked to prepare formal reports for those monthly and weekly updates, by the time a project gets to the point of requiring daily updates, the team may choose to use more quick-access technology like Slack, shared Word documents, or instant messaging. Those quick response tools can be convenient, but it is important to make sure that the actual progress is documented. So, use tools that the team is already comfortable with and use on a regular basis rather than introducing something new for the sake of novelty.