Many project managers, department leaders, and process owners tend to take on the role of reporting status. They collect information from all the employees involved, merge, rewrite, update, put voice to that information, and publish it. It is time consuming work that has limited final value. By the time they are complete, it is often old news, and the intended audience has little interest. In fact, often, by the time the report is published, it is time to begin collecting information for the next report. The role of the manager becomes more about collecting and reporting status than managing the effort!
It can be argued that it is valuable work for the manager to collect this information. Employees will be challenged to take a look at what is going on in their area and the manager will have focused attention on that portion of their whole portfolio of work.
However, there are other ways to collect this information and ensure focus. We recommend that the manager hold their employees responsible to report status using a collaborative on-line location. If properly done, the employee written status will not have to be revised by the manager, can be visited by anyone that has the need and interest, and yet accomplishes the goal of focusing attention on the review effort.
In AccomplishTS, every project has the ability to have periodic status reports (weekly, monthly, quarterly) and more in-depth notes attached. Every employee involved in the project can provide entries. Each entry is dated and reports can easily be generated and saved for future reference – and they can printed in several formats such as rich text or spreadsheet. However, many of our clients tell us that keeping the information on-line and thus accessible on-demand by interested parties eliminates the need for printed reports.
Status report reminders can also automatically be sent, as well as an automatic capture of the status information for all projects in the system, giving an easy way to provide critical information to those that need it without a lot of tedious administrative tasks.
We recommend managers delegate to each employee in charge of important aspects of projects the job of providing weekly or monthly status updates. For instance, weekly status reporting could be required before the end of the day each Friday for critical projects, while lest critical projects would only require reporting monthly, such as before the end of the first workday of each month.
Weekly status updates are intended to be short and consist of bulleted statements concentrating on the following:
- what new was started,
- what was ended (completed or stopped),
- what redirection was decided,
- a prediction about future cost and schedule
Monthly status updates dig deeper into any mitigation or corrective action work planned to ensure the initiative is completed as planned, as well as a description of any changes to the original plan, including the reason for the changes and the impact expected. Monthly reports are intended to be a few paragraphs long – NOT pages.
Notes associated with a project status report can be of any length and the expectation is that they will be updated as needed. Additional documents can also be referenced or even attached to help build a complete record all in one location.
All levels of the organization are invited to review the status information. Managers, in particular, are expected to keep aware of status changes and hold conversations with their employees if there are questions. As much as possible, everyone’s time should be focused on understanding what current plans and actions are without extensive writing. Managers can thus manage, while employees doing the work can thus do the work!