Project Status Report
The project status report, or status report, is the document the project manager sends at fixed intervals to the sponsor and the steering committee to say where the project stands. It compares actual with plan for costs, effort, schedule and outcomes. It gives the estimate at completion, names the problems and the risks with their measures and states which decision it expects.
Goal
The PMBOK Guide describes the status report as a document that reports the current status of the project. It may include progress since the last report and forecasts of cost and schedule performance.
The report supports a decision. The PMBOK Guide files it among the work performance reports, whose purpose it gives as generating decisions, actions or awareness. These reports come out of the Monitor and Control Project Performance process, in the Governance performance domain. From them the sponsor learns whether to continue, reallocate resources, reduce scope or stop. The sponsor rules on quantified variances and on a forecast.
HERMES, the project management method of the Swiss Confederation, makes it one of its outcomes and supplies the template: the project status report (outcome 4.4.1.36). It reports periodically on the status of the project, its progress and the forecasts. Several tasks of the method produce it, among them Manage and control project and Manage risks. The project manager prepares it from the start of the project to its end, beginning in the initiation phase.
The deliverable is the report, issued on each reporting date: one to two pages or the equivalent dashboard.
Usage
When to use it
- Project with a sponsor and a steering committee: give them a written, dated basis that can be compared from one reporting date to the next.
- Project run under HERMES: the report is one of the minimum required documents, which tailoring a module cannot remove.
- Many stakeholders or several sites: one document tells everyone the same thing at the same time.
- Ahead of a steering committee meeting or a phase end: the latest report supplies the quantified status on which the decision paper rests.
- Project delivered with a contracted supplier: the series of reports records, date by date, the variances and the measures taken.
- Project portfolio: reports built on one template and cut off on the same date make the projects comparable.
When not to use it
- Tolerance crossed between two reporting dates: escalate with an exception report without waiting for the next report.
- No quantified baseline: the report has nothing to compare against; set the baseline first through estimation.
- A few weeks of work with no steering body: a verbal check-in and a list kept through item tracking are enough.
Description
From data to report
The PMBOK Guide distinguishes three successive stages. Work performance data are the raw observations and measurements taken during the activities, for example work completed, indicators, actual dates or costs incurred. Work performance information is that data compared with the components of the project management plan and with the project documents, to show where the project stands. The work performance report compiles this information and goes to the stakeholders as the communications management plan sets out.
The project status report belongs to the third stage. A report that passes on raw data skips the middle step: it leaves the comparison to the sponsor, although the project manager knows the plan better than the sponsor does.
Set the cadence and the recipients
The cadence is decided before the first report, in the project management plan. Under HERMES, the plan sets out how reporting is done and takes account of the core organisation's requirements on its content and frequency. In a public administration, these requirements often impose the cadence and the template. The PMBOK Guide leaves distribution to the communications management plan. The plan sets the cadence, the cut-off date for the figures, the recipients and the document template.
The cadence follows how fast the project can drift without anyone noticing. A monthly report suits most projects that run longer than a year. A go-live or a project of a few months calls for a report every one or two weeks. The cut-off date fixes the day on which the figures are taken. Portfolio reports cut off on the last day of the month compare with one another; reports that each project manager cuts off at will do not.
The cadence stays fixed. A project without problems produces its report on the due date. A variance that arose the day before waits for the due date if it stays within tolerance; it is escalated if it crosses a tolerance. This regularity separates the project status report from the exception report, which goes out only when a variance crosses a tolerance. The two coexist in one project. The project management plan sets the cadence of the one and the tolerances that trigger the other.
- Overview of status
- Objective forecast
- Target/actual comparison
- Problems, measures
- Risks
- Outlook
The content according to HERMES
The HERMES reference manual sets the content of the report. Each item answers a question the recipient asks.
| HERMES content item | The recipient's question | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Overview of project status | Where does the project stand? | The overall rating, the current phase, the facts of the period that change the situation. |
| Forecast regarding objective achievement (agile: burndown chart) | Will the project meet its objectives? | The objectives set in the execution order, one per line, with the forecast. |
| Target/actual comparison and forecasts | How far off are we and where will we finish? | Costs and benefits, effort, deadlines, outcomes: planned to date, actual to date, the variance, the estimate at completion. |
| Problems and measures | What is blocking and who is dealing with it? | Each problem with its measure, its owner and its due date. |
| Risks | What could block? | The risks in the register that have changed since the previous report or that exceed the set threshold, with their measures. |
| Outlook | What will happen before the next report? | The work and the milestones of the next period, the decisions to come. |
Writing the report
- Cut off the figures on the planned date. Costs come from accounting, effort from time recording, progress from the scheduling tool or the backlog. A figure taken on another date carries its date.
- Compare with the baseline. For each dimension the report gives planned to date, actual to date and the variance. The baseline is the one the sponsor approved, not the latest version the team has touched up.
- Estimate at completion. The project manager estimates cost, effort and date at completion. One method adds the actuals to the remaining work, re-estimated work package by work package: that is bottom-up estimation. Another extrapolates the performance achieved so far through earned value analysis, which the PMBOK Guide lists among the tools of the process. The project manager revises the estimate at completion in every report and explains each revision.
- Rate the overall status. One rating per dimension and one overall, on a scale that the project management plan defines. The PMBOK Guide allows these reports to take the form of dashboards, stoplight charts or other displays. Stoplight charts, which the Guide equates with RAG charts (red, amber, green), are the common form. The rule that assigns the colours is written once, in the plan; without it, each project manager colours to taste.
- Name the problems and the risks. The risks come from the register kept through risk analysis and management. The report keeps those that have changed since the previous reporting date or that exceed the threshold set in the plan.
- State the decision expected. When a variance exceeds what the project manager can correct alone, the report states which decision it expects, from whom and by when. It presents the options with their consequences in figures. HERMES does not count this item among its six. It follows from the purpose the PMBOK Guide gives the report: to generate decisions.
- Distribute according to the plan. The report goes to the set recipients, on the set date, through the channel the communications management plan provides. It is archived with the earlier reports, because only the series shows a trend.
Pitfalls
The activity report. A list of what the team did during the period ("three workshops held, specification sent") does not say whether the project is ahead or behind. Each activity cited ties to a deliverable in the plan; the report says whether that deliverable is holding its due date.
Green that hides red. A project shows green for months, then turns red from one report to the next. The cause usually lies in the culture of the organisation: where announcing a delay exposes the person who announces it, the project manager holds back the bad news until it can no longer be hidden. Taken alone, each report looks acceptable; the series of estimates at completion shows the drift. At report No. 6 the rating is still green, although the variance has grown from 0 to +4.2% in two months.
| Report | Estimate at completion | Variance to budget | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 4, 30 June | CHF 1'080'000 | 0% | green |
| No. 5, 31 July | CHF 1'098'000 | +1.7% | green |
| No. 6, 31 August | CHF 1'125'000 | +4.2% | green |
| No. 7, 30 September | CHF 1'152'000 | +6.7% | amber |
A written rule that ties each colour to a numeric threshold takes the rating out of the writer's mood. The rest depends on the sponsor: if the sponsor treats amber as information, amber arrives in time. The PMBOK Guide also lists confirmation bias among the measurement pitfalls: the writer reads the figures hoping they are good.
Self-reported percent complete. A work package "90% done" on the word of the person doing it stays at 90% for weeks, because the last 10% hold the integration work and the fixes. Progress is counted in deliverables completed and accepted rather than in an estimated degree of completion.
The figure that serves no purpose. The PMBOK Guide warns against measures that support no decision (vanity metrics). It also cites the Hawthorne effect: measuring changes the behaviour it measures. A report that publishes the number of tickets closed pushes the team to close tickets. A figure stays in the report if it can change a decision of the sponsor; metrics and KPIs deal with the choice of indicators.
The report that is too long. The sponsor reads the first page. That page therefore carries the overall rating, the variances and the decision expected; the detail goes in an appendix. If the sponsor does not react to an amber, the project manager checks that the sponsor has read the report before concluding that the sponsor approves it.
Copy and paste. A report carried over from the previous one keeps sentences that have become false; a reader who spots one doubts the rest. Each item is rewritten from the figures of the period.
AI considerations
AI saves the most time on collection. An assistant connected to the scheduling tool, the time recording and the backlog assembles the figures on the cut-off date and calculates the variances. It drafts the facts of the period from closed tickets and meeting minutes. It spots the inconsistencies that a hurried reviewer lets through: an item rated green while the cost variance exceeds the threshold of the rule, a risk closed in the register and still cited in the report. For a bilingual steering committee it produces the German or French version, which the project manager reviews.
The rating and the estimate at completion stay with the project manager, who answers for them to the sponsor. A language model extrapolates a trend; it does not know that the supplier promised delivery for Monday. A model also smooths the tone, to the point of passing a red off as an amber. The colour is therefore decided by the rule, before drafting. The report contains names of people, which fall under the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). It also contains budgets and difficulties with a supplier, which are business secrets. It goes only to an AI service whose contract governs how the data are retained and used.
Examples
The report below shows a comparison that ends in a decision. Each row sets the actual figure beside the plan and the estimate at completion; the last row says what the committee must decide.
| Item | Planned to date | Actual to date | Variance | Estimate at completion (plan) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | Overall rating: amber. The estimate at completion exceeds the budget by 6.7%; the rule in the plan gives green up to +5%, amber from +5 to +10%, red beyond the tolerance of +10%. Implementation phase. Interface with the cantonal vehicle register behind schedule. | |||
| Objectives | 80% of appointments booked online one year after go-live: achievable. Annual saving of CHF 180'000 at the counters: achievable if the scope is held. | |||
| Costs (effort × CHF 1'800) | CHF 558'000 | CHF 603'000 | +CHF 45'000 | CHF 1'152'000 (CHF 1'080'000) |
| Effort | 310 person-days | 335 person-days | +25 | 640 person-days (600), of which 305 remaining, re-estimated work package by work package |
| Go-live | Planned for 15 March | 12 April (15 March): +4 weeks | ||
| Phase deliverables | 7 | 5 | −2 | 12 of 12 (12) |
| Problems and measures | The register's interface service, delivered on 12 September, covers 2 operations out of 5. Measure: technical workshop with the supplier on 8 October, full delivery required by 31 October. Owner: project architect. | |||
| Risks | Acceptance testing by the counter staff in December, a peak period: probability medium, impact high, rising since report No. 6. Measure: bring a partial acceptance test forward to November. Owner: project manager. | |||
| Outlook | October: complete interface, start of the partial acceptance test. Steering committee on 20 October. Report No. 8 cut off at 31 October. | |||
| Decision expected | From the steering committee, on 20 October. Option A: additional credit of CHF 72'000; scope and go-live on 12 April held. Option B: online payment module (40 person-days) deferred until after go-live; cost at completion brought back to the budget of CHF 1'080'000, first-year saving reduced to CHF 150'000. | |||
The committee decides on the cost row. The variance to date, CHF 45'000, calls for no decision. The estimate at completion, CHF 72'000 over budget, calls for one.
Visualisations
A timeline shows the cadence: the reporting dates fall at fixed intervals; a variance that crosses the tolerance between two dates is escalated without waiting for them. The path from data to report is a chain of three stages, which the PMBOK Guide distinguishes and a diagram lines up with the figures of the example. The content, the series of estimates and the report itself are rows and columns, so they are tables.
Cost
| Phase | Level | Justification |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation | Low | The template, the cadence, the colour rule and the list of recipients are set once, in the project management plan. One day at the start is enough. |
| Execution | Medium | Two to four hours per report for a team of about ten people, half of it spent gathering and checking the figures. The effort drops when the figures come out of the tools without re-keying. |
| Documentation | Low | The report is the documentation. The series is archived in the project's document space. |
Tooling
The HERMES template for the project status report (a Word file, free on hermes.admin.ch) gives the content items of the method. Outside HERMES, a document template in a word processor or a spreadsheet is enough for most projects. The template fixes the items and the place of each figure: two successive reports compare line by line.
The scheduling tool (MS Project, Primavera) and the work tracking tool (Jira, Azure DevOps) supply progress, actual dates and, in an agile approach, the burndown chart that HERMES cites for the forecast regarding objective achievement.
Time recording and cost accounting (SAP or the organisation's ERP) supply the actual effort and costs. Their closing date often dictates the cut-off date of the report.
The dashboard (Power BI, Tableau, the views of a portfolio management tool) replaces the document when the figures reach it without re-keying. The rating, the problems and the decision expected are still written by hand. Business visualizations deal with the choice of charts.
The document space (SharePoint, Confluence, a shared folder) archives the series and gives the recipients access to it.
Sources
- A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 8th edition, Project Management Institute: §2.1.6.7 Monitor and Control Project Performance, the process that tracks, reviews and reports the progress of the project, with its measurement pitfalls (§2.1.6.7.1 Measurement Pitfalls); Section 4 Inputs and Outputs, entries "Status report" and "Work performance reports", which define the report and file it among the work performance reports.
- Swiss Confederation, Federal Chancellery, HERMES 2022, Project Management Reference Manual, outcome 4.4.1.36 Project status report: the purpose of the report, its content in six items, the referral of its form to the project management plan and the core organisation's requirements on its content and frequency. The same manual lists it among the minimum required documents (§4.2.1.1) and has it prepared from the start of the project to its end (§7.4.1.2).
- Swiss Confederation, Federal Chancellery, HERMES 2022, Project Management Reference Manual, task 5.4.3.33 Manage and control project: one of the tasks that produce the report.