Getting Project Reporting Under Control

Introduction

Creating project reports routinely can seem like a real chore and can become overwhelming – even to the point of reducing the project manager’s ability to manage the project itself.

In reality, project reporting is integral to project management. Reports and updates have to be provided to management, the project sponsor and other interested parties. There is no way to avoid that.

However, producing reports benefits the project manager. It gives them a means of showing that everything is under control and progressing well.

Even if there are issues, the reports are a means for explaining the situation, what options there may be and what steps are being taken.

Problems can arise when there are a number of different reports to be produced for different groups at different times. This is what we’re going to tackle now.

Writing A Reporting Plan

Here’s what I recommend to keep this controllable and manageable.

Take a sheet of paper and a pencil (I find this helps me to be more creative, but choose what works for you).

Draw a rough grid with the different people or groups who need to receive reports down the left side and the content they need to receive across the top. Then show in the rows and columns where content and audience coincide.

The object is to spot patterns and ways to create all the reports in the most efficient way.

You should be able to reduce the number of reports that need to be produced by creating reports that are suitable for a wider range of people.

Type this grid in to Excel or Word. This will form part of your reporting plan that you can circulate, but it should also be an aide memoire for yourself when you create the reports.

Bear in mind that you want to provide to each recipient or group what they need and avoid providing more detail than they need.

If you create reports that are too long or detailed for some of your audience you may find that they don’t read it. This can be a problem because you need them to know what you have included in the report – sending the report, in itself, won’t achieve this.

The other pitfall for providing reports that contain information or detail that is not appropriate for the readers is that they may not understand or may misunderstand what they are reading. This may lead to them worrying over something that is perfectly fine and lead to unnecessary problems.

Once you have a clear picture of what reports you need to create and what they contain you need to consider a regular time slot when you will send these out and book the time to work on the reports in your calendar. The ideal is to do the whole report task in one session on the same day each week (or each month).

Trying to spread the work out in to multiple sessions can result in rewriting and generally less efficient use of your time.

Producing The Reports

Start by typing up the most detailed report. This may be the report your line manager or project sponsor needs.

Then create the other reports by deleting the details that are not needed in those reports.

Deleting content to create alternative versions is a lot quicker and easier than adding content.

Avoid having to retype the same content multiple times for different audiences. You can create a high level paragraph for a section that gives the overview that some will want and then add deep dive paragraphs below this that will go to only those who need that.

You may even find that no one report you send includes all of the most detailed report as each report you send is edited for a specific audience.

If there is an on-line reporting system that you need to update then following the routine above means you have the text already prepared that you can simply copy and paste it in to the forms on the system.

Starting with the most detailed report can be useful for you too. You then have one document that contains all the information.

This will be a useful resource for you in the future and pieces of text can be copied and pasted to answer questions that arise in a consistent way. If two people ask the same question you won’t have the risk of providing a slightly different answer to each of them.

Organising Yourself

If you’re not careful reporting can be very time consuming and can interfere with your ability to manage the project itself.

Define a day in the week or a date in each month when you produce your reports. Define the time of day too. These will probably coincide with the requirements of your most senior audience e.g. the project sponsor.

Set aside time in your calendar to be able to go through the report work from beginning to end in one go every week (or month) just before you circulate the reports.

Make sure the date and time you published the reports are clearly shown on them (e.g. Thursday 15th, 5pm EDT). Circumstances may change between you sending the report and some recipients reading theirs.

Following an organised approach and being consistent will keep everyone happy and informed and everyone having confidence that you know what you’re doing and everything is under control – and a happy you, the project manager.

Afterthoughts

Carefully gauge how much information your audience really want. I had a project once where the weekly report to management was a simple paragraph by email with a grid showing three key elements and their RAG status’ (red, amber or green).

Don’t make unnecessary work for yourself.