The following is my series of tweets on writing effective status reports in 30 minutes or less >

When writing a status report, decide when to publish it and be consistent. I like to send my reports out 24 hrs before my team meetings. The frst thing to remember about writing a good status report is who is the audience and what do they need to know. In other words, The real trick for writing a status report is to remember why you are writing it. The second thing to remember about status reports is that a good report is more than information, it can help you manage the project.

A status report should show: Where the project is at. Where it is headed. How much money is left and what people need to worry about. Start the status report with a 2 - 3 sentence summary of the current state of the project. Include major news such as completing a milestone. The next part of the report show the status of the project for schedule, budget, quality, and scope. Use stoplight colors if you want. If schedule, budget, quality, or scope are tracking yellow or red add a brief note of why and what action is needed or being taken.

The next section of the report should list milestones or deliverables that have been met. Also list any that are late. The next section should show upcoming milestones or deliverables and whether they will meet the schedule. The last section of the report should include things people need to worry about. New major issues or risks liekly to be triggered.

Always keep the status report concise. One page is best if possible. Also use clear language and avoid hyperbole. Finally the most important part of writing a status report is to be honest with yourself. If the project is.

Next week I will look at how the status report can help you manage the project

Yes it is time for my annual rant on status reports. I actually rant on these daily but only write about it once a year!

First off I do believe status reports are important to a project and its stakeholders. My concern is that they are always misused. Project status reports should be about: where the project is, where it is going, what we need to worry about, & is it on schedule and budget.

• My # 1 problem with status reports is the status itself. Many companies use stop light status but invariably don't define what they mean.
• The other problem with stop light status is that we want to make up colors to avoid being red or yellow. Grellow, really.
• My next big problem with status reports is that we want to include too much information. Do we really need to list all of the milestones?
• We also want to list every accomplishment for the previous week. Is this useful? Probably not.
• Another concern is that stakeholders want different views of the same data so we end up with a weekly, monthly, and executive reports. Yuck!
• Many PMOs have templates for status reports that include risks and issues. Don't we have logs for those?
• Another issue is that all too often PMs copy the status report from week to week and ony change a few items to save time.
• Which leads me to - Status reports should never take more than 30 minutes to write. We have projects to run, right?

Next week I will tweet about how to write effective status reports in 30 minutes or less