Guide to Reporting the Status

of your Project

The Project Status Report is your opportunity to communicate how your project is doing, any accomplishments that should be acknowledged, and issues and risks where you need support to address. Once the Project Workplan has been developed, identify the appropriate frequency for reporting on your project’s status based on:

  • when your milestones occur (you should report on the status of your project at least as often as your major milestones);
  • how often key stakeholders will want an update on the project.

The frequency of reporting does not need to be constant throughout the life of your project. There may be times where it makes sense to report more frequently (when you are in a more critical phase of the project and many significant activities are being undertaken), or less often (when the amount of project work is significantly lower and the next major milestone is a ways off).

The Project Status Report is not a document to be completed on your own and simply emailed to your Project Sponsor, Executive Sponsor and Team Leaders. It should be used as your guide for the conversations you will need to have with your Project Sponsor, Executive Sponsor, Team Leaders and other key stakeholders for your project.

This section will be based on Sections 1 and 2 of your Project Charter. This section will not change unless there has been a significant change to your project.

The Reporting Period will be based on the frequency of reporting that you determined from your Project Workplan.

This section provides the overall status for your project:

Green / Yellow / Red
Scope / On track / Scope is at risk of being changed / Scope has been changed without approval from Executive Sponsor
Timeline / On track / Project is at risk of not meeting its target timeline / Project will not be able to meet the target timeline
Budget / On track / Project is at risk of exceeding its budget / Project will not be able to be delivered within budget

In the comments section, you are required to provide an explanatory note if the status for any of the above is yellow or red. The note should include what the specific condition is to take the project off track and the proposed action required.

Any changes to the scope, timeline or budget must be approved by your Executive Sponsor –the status of the project will remain yellow or red until this approval has been confirmed.

This section will include all of the key milestones that are in your Project Workplan. The status for these milestones will be updated as you are approaching them – it is possible to identify the status as green, yellow or red in advance of the target date, to indicate whether you believe the milestone will be reached by that date.

As with the overall status in the previous section, the comments column must be completed for any milestone that has a status of yellow or red.

This section highlights any deliverables and major meetings or sessions that have been completed in the reporting period. The intent is to highlight 3 to 5 of the most important accomplishments in relation to the overall project outcome as opposed to listing every task that was completed.

This section identifies the deliverables and major meetings or sessions that are planned for completion in the next reporting period. If everything goes to plan, then each line item in this section will be moved to the Key Accomplishments This Period section in the next status report.

The purpose of this section is to identify any issues or barriers that:

  • You need support in order to address. Be as specific as possible about the Proposed Actions and Support Required – e.g. Project Sponsor required to be present at July 15 team meeting to respond to questions regarding …[topic].
  • You feel are important to highlight to your Project Sponsor and Executive Sponsor, even if you do not require specific support from them.

This section highlights and risks or opportunities that need to be actively mitigated or managed. Provide as much specific detail as you can about the risk or opportunity and what its impact is likely to be. Then in the Action Plan column, identify the specific actions you will take to address the risk or opportunity.

The difference between an issue and a risk is that an issue is something that has already occurred whereas a risk is something that has no occurred but has a probability of occurring and having a negative impact on your project (an opportunity is something that could occur but has a positive impact). Once a risk has become a reality, and it has a significant negative impact on your project, it should be moved to the Key Issues or Barriers section above.

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July 2012