5 Essentials For Your Project Reports

#1: Major risks

List the top 3 risks to the project on your report. These should be the big risks that you want your
sponsor to be aware of and perhaps even take action on. If you are expecting a decision about the
best route forward or next steps then point this out on the report.

As risk status can change almost daily, talk to the risk owner before you prepare the report and
make sure that you have all the details about the latest situation. You don't want to be reporting
something that is out of date!

#2: Major issues

Include a list of the top 3 issues on the project and what you are doing about them. Again, if you
need input from your project sponsor to help resolve them, be sure to mention it! Include the
name of the person who is managing the issue (the issue owner) and the date by when you think
the issue will be resolved.

#3: Progress summary

Sponsors are really interested in how much progress is being made so this is an important section.
List the major project milestones and whether or not they have been achieved on the target dates.
Don't try to include all your milestones: just pick the significant ones. If you haven't hit a
milestone, make a note of the day you said you would achieve it along with the new forecasted
date so you can see how significantly your plan has changed.

The scheduling features in ProjectManager.com will automatically show you any slippage or
changes to the due dates for project tasks through an advanced suite of project reports. You can
use this information in your status reports to save you time.

#4: Budget forecast

Another thing that sponsors want to know about is how much the project is costing and whether or
not it is on track to spend more or less than you originally predicted. The status report is an
opportunity to provide an early warning if the project looks like it is going to be over budget (or
under budget, as the unspent money could be allocated to other work).

There's no need to provide lots of detail, just the high level figures of what you originally
budgeted, how much has been spent to date and what you think the expenditure will be when the
project is over.

#5: Status indicator

Make it easy for people to see if the project is going well with a Red/Yellow/Green status indicator.
The traffic light colors highlight whether the project needs management attention (Red), is at risk
of not hitting its targets (Yellow) or is progressing according to plan (Green).

The simplest way to display this information is by using a colored box at the top of the report.
Type the word Red, Yellow or Green as well as using color in case your sponsor is looking at the
report printed out in black and white!