How to Report Status on a Project

By Rob Redmond

To write excellent status, you must understand:

1. The three components of status

• Overall
• Milestones - c0mpleted, in progress, and coming up
• Issues - that require management action/attention

2. Write in brief details

• Bullets, no paragraph
• Shorten expressions and sentences
• Reduce adverbs (really, very, much) and adjectives (good, bad, ugly)

3. Key data needed by management

• project's name
• project identification number
• overall project health (red yellow green)
• % complete you expected to be at today (planned completion)
• % complete you are actually at
• number of days behind or ahead against the plan
• number of blocking issues you face
• number of "normal issues" you face