1 Way to Save Time with a Dual-Purpose Status for Your Project

The purpose of this blog post is to describe how to save time in your weekly reporting by using your status report for dual purposes.  

Status reports are covered under the LEAD domain and in the People segment and the Communications piece in the MPM model.

Status reports are covered under the LEAD domain and in the People segment and the Communications piece in the MPM model

The Status Report is Your Main Communication Tool

Your status report is your main form of communication.  But don’t create two distinct and separate ones, as in one for your team and peers, and one for those your report to or the executive.

The Status Report is your main weekly communication

Create Re-usable parts

Create a dual-purpose report, kind of like a core document, that has content that servers both audiences.  It saves you time and also creates more transparency both ways.  

Your team and peers see risks you are phrasing for executive engagement and they appreciate that visibility.  As well when you compliment the team for work done the team knows that is visible at senior levels too.

Create a status core document with re-usable parts:

• Accomplishments:  Project achievements over the past week in bullet point form – maybe about a half-dozen give or take a few.  

Keep the accomplishments at a team level, not an individual level.  Use “we”, “they”, “the team” rather than individual people’s names.

Use the same phrasing for deliverables and tasks as the terminology that is on the schedule.  

Add a few words about the challenge(s) overcome if appropriate, but again, keep it at a team level.

• Planned for next week (or next reporting period): As above, keep expectations at a team level rather than by individual.  

Use the phrasing from the schedule.  You should be able to rotate these up to accomplishments on subsequent reports.

• Risks: Add in any risks that have a potential for coming to fruition.

Use Risk statements as covered in this blog post, and this blog post on managing risks could help as well.  

Ensure the mitigations are specific enough.  They may have been more general before the project started and may need to be reworded now to relate to what is happening currently.

You can walk through the risk statements that you add to the status core document with your project team before leaving the team meeting, so they understand what is being communicated.

Reuse a status core each week for reporting

• Schedule:  There is a lot to discuss here, but briefly, include enough of the schedule that it encompasses current areas of work, but keep most of it high-level, and include the end date, so both the team and executive can see the critical dates.

Being able to see critical dates, such as the end date helps establish urgency for what is being done in the upcoming week (or reporting period).

The schedule also has the tasks that have to be done in the next period highlighted in red, or bolded and there are team members name beside it.  This level of detail is subtle, and not something that the executive really cares about.  

However, it helps each team member understand what is urgent and important that they complete in the upcoming week in order to keep the project on track to meet the critical dates.

There isn’t time to get into more detail on this blog post.  More detail is covered in workshops and online courses.

However, those items are the basics that once constructed each week for a status core document with material that can be used for both the reporting to the team and the reporting to the executive.

The team status can use the components above and then be customized for the team to have small reminders for what needs to be done in the upcoming week, or it could have details about out of offices for different team members.

The executive status can use the components above and then be customized for the executive to have additional notes about project objectives or steering committee decisions or other items discussed.

Keep Status Reports Simple

I have seen some bizarre status reporting, so convoluted and detailed with multi-colors and small and large fonts over several pages.  

It’s ludicrous to create something overly complicated because no one can read them, let alone understand them or help mitigate any challenges. 

However, if within an organization there is a project management office, that is a central team that coordinates the projects, and this office requires use of certain template, then you may be required to use their standard status report layout.  Still try to keep it simple, and then paste your status core parts into the template you have to use.

Common status between team and executive

The attitude conveyed on the status report should be “Here’s what we got done last week, here is what we are working on this week, here’s the context of how those things fit in with the overall timeframe of the different milestones, and here are some risks or issues we are currently concerned about, so you can help us if they materialize.”

Summary

Keep status reports simple and clean, although some organization’s project management offices, may require the use of standard complex formats; just attempt to keep it as simple as possible.

Create a status core document of reusable parts and then copy and paste that into the project team status and into the executive team status; and add some small customizations if required.

The basics are that you need to communicate accomplishments, planned activities, risks, and some context of the schedule to keep both the team and executive informed and aware, with a sense of urgency about what needs to be done in the next week to keep the project on track.

Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge

1. Create a standard status core document weekly report format using the bulleted sections above.
2. Try completing the core sections each week first and leaving that core intact to be copied over as a starting point for the core document for the following week.
3. Create a template for both the team weekly status and the executive weekly status.
4. Now each week for each type of status report just copy and paste the core parts in and then update the corresponding customized pieces.  This should save you a lot of time each week.
5. Prompt engineering guidance for AI GPTs such as chatGPT: “I’m a business leader needing to create status reports for a project whose purpose is Y, and delivering X. What are some tips I should consider when creating a status report for my team versus a status report for my stakeholders?”

Learn More to Do More

Business evolves through change initiatives otherwise known as projects. The key to managing these change initiatives so you have more time, and less stress is to use simple strategies and tools.

Check out the Learning Hub’s other Articles with Actionable Steps, organized with a busy leader in mind, by topic or main idea, and with some AI GPT (e.g. ChatGPT) prompt engineering suggestions under the Action steps: https://simplepmstrategies.com/learning-hub-index

LEAD – Communication Dual Purpose Status 

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