Unit 6:Project Control Techniques

(Status Reports and Reviews)

6.1 Designing and Producing Status Report Documents
6.2 Preparing and Conducting Status Review Meetings
 SECTIONS OF STATUS REPORT
Format for a Status Report
Section 1. Where are we today?
Section 2. Where will we be at the next report?
Section 3. What is our budget position?
Section 4. What items jeopardize project
completion?
Section 5. Who deserves recognition?
Section 1. Where are we today?
• First paragraph gives brief synopsis of the
project’s progress since the last status report.
• Second paragraph provide a milestone chart
giving a historical perspective of thirty to sixty
days. This section also provides a high-level
project perspective for the purposes of
management review.
• Your goal is to provide an adequate description of the
project, in a short format, that is readable—and will
more than likely be read.
 Section 2. Where will we be at the
next report?
• describe the project’s near-term direction
• the events that will take place during the next
reporting interval
• Use one-to-two-sentence bulleted items
describing pending events, and prepare a
milestone chart with a thirty-to sixty-day
forward view.
• This section gives upper managers a view of
the project’s immediate direction.
 Section 3. What is our budget position?
• It is very important that this section be a clear visual
image.
• Detailed charts with mounds of data and dozens of
line items get ignored unless a project is in serious
trouble.
• Prepare a simple line graph or a bar chart that
displays plan versus actual data.
• If there is significant variance in actual versus plan,
provide a brief explanation of the cause of the
variance.
• This simple chart gives managers enough basic data
to assess overall project budgetary status.
• If they want more detail, they will request it
 Section 4. What items jeopardize
project completion?
• It must place the completion of the project at
risk, and it must be beyond your capability to
resolve.
• If both these conditions are met, ask for help
in clear tones.
• If both these conditions are met, ask for help
in clear tones.
• Inform your manager of any items you intend
to include in this section before you print the
report.
 Section 5: Who deserves recognition?
• This last section is very important and often
overlooked.
• Team members, not just project managers,
make or break a project.
• Their involvement, commitment, and
dedication to quality make the difference
between success and failure.
• Adapt these five sections to your own situation in
order to improve communication with
management.
• Encourage your peers to adopt a format they will
all employ.
• You will find that a short, concise status report
is a management tool, not drudgery.
• Managers will learn what to expect in a status
report and where to find it.
• The key to a status report is how effectively it
communicates the state of the project to
management, but it has to be read first.
• Make it concise.
 tool for project control
• Charts and Graphs
• Trend Analysis
 6.2 Preparing and Conducting Status
Review Meetings
questions during the first project review
meeting:
Why are the milestones not completed?
What is the impact?
When will the work be done?
Is an alternative action plan needed?
What is the date(s) required to get back
on schedule?
 Prepare for a Review Meeting
In order to resolve these issues, you must
prepare for project status review meetings.
1. Define the objective of the meeting clearly.
2. Prepare a well-thought-out agenda.
3. Invite the essential people.
4. Dry run your speakers.
5. Organize the project review meeting to your
best advantage.
 How to Conduct a Review Meeting
• Follow the agenda.
– Once the agenda is set, follow it.
– Do not stray from the format.
– If an attendee attempts to circumvent your game plan, use
the agenda to bring the subject back into focus.
• Don’t overrun your agenda.
– time allotment on the margin of your working agenda.
– Most attendees’ schedules are tight; therefore, they will
probably allocate just so much time to your review
meeting.
– There is a prevailing feeling that too much time is
spent in meetings, so make the briefing concise and stay
on target.