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Project Report Checklist: What Should Be Included in a Project Status Report?

Preparing project status reports isan essential project management practice. The reports help project managers identify the progress of the projects. They also identify potential risks and other challenges that must be addressed.  Moreover, they help project managers to keep stakeholders in the loop regarding the project status.

Here we will talk at length about the important elements of project status report. The information contained here will help in preparing a quality project status report that will be valuable for all stakeholders.

1. Project Identification

The first element of project status report project identifiers. These come first in the report and include the following information.

• Project ID
• Project name
• Project report date
• Name of project manager

While, the above information may seem obvious, it’s easy to overlook. The project identification with the exception of project date remains the same in all the reports relating to a particular project.

2. Project Milestones

Project milestones refer to major phases of the project. The section categorizes the project tasks into different groups. Each phase is made of an iterative series of tasks. These phases together determine the milestone of the project.

3. Project Health

Project health section should mention the current status of the project. The section should answer whether the project is on track, ahead of, or behind schedule. In other words, you should give an overview of the project reporting where you are at the moment as compared to where you had planned to be during the project planning stage.

In case of any delays, you should mention the reasons for which they occurred, and how it will impact the project outcome. Consider using color-codes to represent the status of each task. For instance, red could mean delayed tasks, yellow could reflect possible delays, while green could show that the task is on track.

In this section, you should also answer whether the project costs are under or over budget. In addition, in this section, you should highlight any other items that requireattention of the stakeholders such as unexpected threats, constraints, and other matters.

4. Project Completeness

Project completeness section visually depicts the project status. You should represent the project completeness in percentage terms. The section could be in the form of a pie or bar chart.

5. Risks and Threats

This section describes all obstacles and risks related to the project and also the actions that you will take to overcome the risks. You should list both actual and potential risks. Also, this section could include change requests in the light of present risks.

The above five are the most important elements of a project status reports. At this point, you should note that an online team management software can be of great help in preparing a project status report. You can share important statistics regarding the project by giving remote access to the stakeholders. This will save time and eliminate confusions regarding the status of the project.