Do you feel like no one is reading what you have to say every week?
Is it hard to do it in one day?
Stakeholders miss important information and wonder why you didn’t ping them.
But you did. The weekly status report. [iStock/-goldy-]Writing useless reports is a common thing in project management.
You can however change this.
There are many ways you can do it.
You can silently edit and tweak the report to improve it. The fact that no one ever reads it may not be changed.
I would suggest a new approach. Talk to stakeholders directly. There might be some obstacles.
Here’s a true story about one of my colleagues.
“I don’t know. “We always do this”
The project was a lasting success.
It was given to me by another manager during the middle of the action.
They have a long history of creating documents and processes here.
However, I was struck at the fact that many artifacts they use seem to be too powerful for a small group.
This weekly status report was sent to them, for example.
It was huge. This is a detailed description of each member of the team’s daily progress. There were risks, obstacles and open questions. The JIRA also contained a long list of defects.
It took me all day to complete this report. Naturally, I needed to ask my team for their assistance.
Due to the time constraints of our customer I doubt he will be able to review this report.
Are we really going to need this type of report?
The answer was:
I don’t know. It’s always done in this way. It is very valuable to my, so keep at it.
This was a sign to try it.
In the middle of each of the subsequent reports, I wrote “No one ever readings this report”. This section is not for you, so I won’t fill it in.
These sentences were not prominent among the rest of text. It is easy to read if you scan the text.
After three weeks, I checked the status reports once more.
They are very informative. We are very grateful!
The following texts were then highlighted by me.
This is how we came to an agreement to simplify our report for the week that followed.
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It is possible to write it in every article. As a project manager, you should be as efficient and effective as possible.
Why?
Your job is to make good decisions. To do this, you must be able think and analyze.
I can also assure you that you have more to accomplish than you can handle.
You cannot delegate certain tasks in project management. Collecting data for weekly status reports is one of those tasks.
It can be divided equally between team members. Templates can be used to ensure that everyone can easily copy and paste their parts into the report.
Your primary responsibility is to analyze the data and inform stakeholders about any required actions.
How does it look?
Project Weekly Status Report Contents
A weekly report that is efficient has two parts.
Actual report
The message you sent with the report.
What’s the catch?
In the accompanying note, please state the main Call to Action.
What is your email status report?
Generic email without a CTA can be a waste.
Your stakeholders don’t have an incentive to open the attachment.
This might be a good idea:
CTA that points to a particular section of a report. This one, for instance:
CTA that solves problems
My point is simple. Your report should not go out. Do not assume stakeholders are eagerly waiting for the report to be published.
Tell us if you find something important in our report.
Okay. Now what?
Template for Task Management Report
The idea behind this template is simple:
You will be reporting on the tasks you have completed this week as well as those that are being planned for next week. These are the details.
Get the Weekly Project Status Report Template
This template can be used in an email.
Executive Summary
It is the most important.
Here you can summarize all the important information
