5.5. Project Reports
After data has been collected and analyzed, it needs to be reported in some form. Project reports provide senior management and project teams an opportunity to see whether a project is on track and to determine whether they should do something differently to ensure the projects meet their goals. The fundamental characteristics of a good reporting system include:
Timely, complete and accurate reports are:
- Not too costly
- Readily acceptable to the team and sponsor
- Containing pertinent information only
- Warns of pending problems (feedforward)
- Easy to understand – short and concise
In general, project managers should avoid periodic reports except in those cases in which the flow of data is periodic. Reports issued routinely – every day, week, month, or quarter generally do not get read. Instead, let a project’s milestones, scope changes, problems, and the project teams’ need for information dictate the timing of reports. The Project Manager will determine what goes in the reports – your job is to prepare and distribute them to the team.
Types of Project Reports
- Performance/progress reports –These reports indicate the physical progress to date. The report might include information about procurement, delivery and usage.
- Status reports – These reports identify where we are today and use the information from the performance reports to calculate Schedule Variances (SV) and Cost Variances (CV).
- Projection Reports– The reports provide forward-looking projections and emphasize where the project will end up.
- Exception Reports – These reports identify exceptions, problems, or situations that exceed the threshold limits on items such as variances, cash flows, resources assigned, etc.
After the deliverables have been physically constructed and accepted by the customer, a phase review is carried out to determine whether the project is complete and ready for closure.
“Chapter 17: Project Implementation Overview” from NSCC Project Management by NSCC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
“Data Reports” by Undraw, Undraw License
