Project Reports Introduction

Project Report Introduction

A project report is a document that accumulates all the details on the overall status of the project report introduction or specific aspects of the project’s progress or performance. Regardless of the type of report, it is made up of project data based on economic, technical, financial, managerial production aspects.  

Creating a project report is an important part of starting or managing a project, but not for the reasons you might think. Most people assume that a project report is meant to raise money for a particular project or get a sponsor. It is true, but that is not the only use of a project report!

The process of writing a project report and putting it together is much more valuable. When you are writing a project report, you discover and understand what it is going to take to make your project successful. It gives you clarity about your ideas.

1. Status Reports: Create a standard status report template or use the one that comes with your project management software and use the data in your scheduling tool to populate the project progress. Even if you have to amend it afterwards, having some of the fields completed for you will still save you a lot of time.

2. Progress Report: Progress reports can be generated with project management software, but there are templates that can be helpful. The Project Manager has a free progress report template for Word that has everything you need to make a thorough progress report, including a summary section that looks at the project status, schedule, cost, and risk.  

3. Risk Reports: The risk report should include a summary of the risk profile of the project, but how you present this is up to you. A good approach would be to only include the details of the risks that have the potential to create the most problems for your project

4. Board/Executive Reports: The report you produce for the project board will have a different level of detail in it compared to the weekly status update that goes to your project team and key business stakeholders.

5. Cost Benefit Analysis Report: The cost benefit analysis shows what you expect to pay for a project and compares that to the benefits or opportunities you’ll get after completing the project.

6. Resource Reports: The resource report will show you the breakdown of which project report team member is allocated to which task on which day. They can also be used to pinpoint overallocation problems – where a team member is allocated to more than one task.

7. Variance Reports: The variance report is a great tool for the project manager, who needs a lens into the project’s progress to make intelligent decisions on allocating resources. But not only project managers benefit from the reporting. Stakeholders are interested in high-level reporting, and variance reports give them a thumbs’ up or thumbs’ down as to the progress of the project and whether it meets its schedule and budget.

8. Gap Analysis Report: It has space for your current item state and your future item state. Then you can note the gap percentage you have to close to reach your goal and list the actions necessary to achieve this. Identify who will lead this initiative and even capture the action status.