When and how to do a status report

Following a list of few articles already written here, one of the activities I consider very important and I enjoy the most is creating the “status report” for the things that depend on me. (This practical example, was created few weeks ago to a real project).

Status report are NOT only for projects!

Status report is a bigger thing, and doing status reports is not only for projects, but also for everything that depends on you. Few examples:

• Telling your leader what, about that key activity to the company, advanced during the last week;
• Telling people what you learned during that important event;
• Letting people know how is your project going on (sure);
• Managing your own team;
• Let yourself know how your life plans are going on. It can be your tool for the self-retrospective moment;

Whether you want to send it to someone (like your leader eg), or not, the status report is a moment, where you have to stop everything and take a look at what really matters from above.

Creating your model

What do you want to report? As of many status reports I’ve already dealt with, probably the most basic information is: date (when it was generated), last updates (textual relevant things) and KPIs (executive numbers). You must also have in mind who will receive it (if your plan is to send it somehow). What is the language the people on the other side will understand? Should it be more executive? Can it be very detailed (probably not)? Below I’m showing some suggestions for some kind of reports as examples above:

Key activity status report

You can think on sending your information inside an email’s body, according to how small and/or important is your information. It depends on how formal you want to be.

• Date — is the information inside an email? The email sent date can be your information. Otherwise, say when the snapshot was taken;
• What is the activity? Whenever you look at it, it will help you to keep the focus on what really matters and to take away anything which is not aligned with your main goal. What’s the expected result?
• Dependencies — suppliers dependencies and schedule are very important to show. Anything you depend on must be shown here, because it may affect your progress.
• Updates — general relevant information. Example: during this week, activities X and Y were finished. The last one, Z, will be finished in two weeks. Also, the scope or important facts regarding an important activity changed.
• News! — are you researching a new technology to the company? A good section could be news regarding that research, having its content coming from the top influencers.
• KPIs — how can you measure how close you are to reach the activity’s goal?

Event results status report

So the company is investing sending you to an important event in your area. It makes sense to let everyone know what you learned there and sharing the new information with whoever wants it. Imagine it will be 4 days of event, then one compilation a day can be nice.

• Date — what is the day inside the event?
• What was the main subjects? What was the subjects you heard during the speeches? Did you know any new important technology? Who was there talking? Was this guy someone known widely? What is his LinkedIn profile?
• Descriptions about everything — Be short but also say everything relevant that was spoke. How can you and your company get benefits from that speech? Can you suggest an strategy to move towards that opinion/techonology?
• Opinions! Since you were there, give your opinion. The speech was nice but you have your doubts about the subject potential? Say it!

A regular project status report

Team progress status report

If you are a team leader, a status report can be very useful to have regular looks at your work as a leader. Let’s look how your team is doing! It will, for many times, get crossed by the regular project status report (above), but there are more things to look when we talk about team, not only projects.

• Date — the date when was this snapshot taken;
• Operation / regular activities — it’s basic. How are your regular activities going on? Create a quick KPI here: is everything ok or not? Are you up to the schedule with your regular deliveries? Extract it from the project’s status report suggested above;
• Customer — how is your relationship with the customer? Do you know who is responsible for taking important decision inside it? Who are your key actors that you must monitore everything they say? What is their straight current opinion about your relationship right now? A satisfaction survey, conducted by someone new can, be very useful;
• Team health — is everyone inside your team well satisfied with their job? How does it fits in their careers? It’s your job to ensure everybody is well motivated and feeling guts.
• New stuff — how are your plans to improve? Why not showing plans for a new process you may be thinking to increase people’s knowledge? Also trying to reach someone new inside the customer you don’t have a established relationship yet? It’s time to look to whatever is important over all your responsibility and plan actions to improve them;

Next steps

When you must let people know about your status report, it’s meant to be presented, not just sent. The most important thing after a big status report, is getting feedback. The feedback will also come from yourself when you are updating your file, and not only from people who will receive it. So, whenever you find something not going well as planned, plan and take actions to put that thing back on track.