12. Report Project Status

The best ways to report project status on the projects include comparing actual cost and schedule against the planned cost and schedule, indicating corrective actions taken and forecasting adjustments if needed.

Communicate accurately and often. Your sponsor, customer and stakeholder will take bad news more easily if it's presented to them in time to provide direction or make suggestions to correct them. If you report project status in time to take action, you make your stakeholders partners in decision-making for the project, even if the decision is to pull the plug. The worse thing you could do would be to wait until most of the budget has been spent before letting them know that the project is hopelessly behind schedule and consuming funds twice as fast as expected. Give them the opportunity to help and offer suggestions.

Report project status by comparing actuals to the current budget. By comparing actual progress to the most recent budget revision you show how things stand that have occurred since the revisions were approved and since the last reporting session. Here's where you will want to talk about tasks that are going according to plan, as well as those that are falling behind or concuming budget too quickly.

Use variances to forecast future performance. You'll want to give them an idea of the project outcomes based on events and progress so far, and on projections of current trends in cost and schedule variances. Where possible, indicate schedule trends like tasks appear to be averaging 20% longer than anticipated. Obviously, only one delayed task out of 50 wouldn't indicate a trend. You can show trends in costs either on a task by task basis or as an overall project spending rate, also known as the burn rate. For example, we're spending about $150 more per week than planned.

Present an action plan to correct or improve progress. You should never make the sponsor, customer and stakeholders come up with a plan. They will resent having to do it and you will rarely be satisfied with what they suggest. Instead, develop your own plan and present it to them. Then give them the opportunity to accept it, change it, or suggest alternatives.

Sometimes negotiation is your only option. When you have problems that are uncorrectable, often your only choice is to adjust the project's cost, schedule, or requirements to compensate or accommodate the changes. When you need to do that, you'll need the approval of the sponsor, the customer, and perhaps the stakeholders. To get that approval you may need to negotiate the changes. Be prepared to communicate progress and talk about solutions. In some cases it may be advisable to have two or three possible solutions or scenarios up your sleeve.

Remember to report project status often and whenever significant events occur. It's easier to make course corrections if you do it right away. Wait too long, and you could be too far off course to recover.

- Jake Alexander 

Next in the series: Closing the Project