Author: Claudia Rassalski, CA, PMP, PMO-CP

The Case for the Project Status Report

The status report is crucial to the successful governance of any project. Done right, the status report is written with the purpose of engaging the audience. It not only describes progress, it supports informed decision making and urges action. More importantly, this is an opportunity to control the narrative around the project, ensuring the status report is the “go-to”/central source for key project information.

At a basic level, it seems easy to jot down the facts, variances, analysis and next steps. Then again, in the midst of busy meticulous day to day project work, it can be difficult to pause, take a broader view, and articulate a meaningful status. Sometimes it helps to remember why the status report is important. Read on for a few of my chosen reasons.

Often, it is the only record summarizing the ongoing work of the team

When a project begins, stakeholders and team members are introduced, roles and responsibilities are assigned, the purpose, objectives and approach to work are agreed upon. Work begins, setbacks are overcome and challenges are creatively worked through as progress is made. As the weeks draw on, it becomes more difficult to recount the precise detail of the effort to achieve the hard-won results delivered at each milestone. So why not record the challenges encountered and celebrate the wins of the team throughout the project?​​ As a bonus, by project closure there will exist a neat historical record of the life of the project with invaluable information to contribute to “Lessons Learned” and trend analysis.

Serves to keep stakeholders focused on the “end game”

Project distractions abound. It is the job of the project manager to sift through the “noise” and identify the facts that do - or might - impact project objectives, and clearly communicate these to the team and stakeholders. The status report brings attention to tangible progress made, as well as risks and issues that could derail progress. Remembering the agreed purpose of the project is central to giving due consideration to the probability and impact of perceived risks, along with assessing the severity of issues.

Proactive and pragmatic communication with stakeholders

Stakeholder engagement is imperative to project success. The status report is just one tool that can be used consistently to communicate with stakeholders. However, the information must be relevant, complete and current. If not, the report is meaningless. To that end, align the purpose of the status report with the audience and their respective roles and responsibilities to the project. There should be no ambiguity about progress, issues, risks, their impact, and respective mitigation strategies in place. Further, each respective action required must have accountability assigned. It should be clear which actions and/or decisions are required, why, by whom and by when. Further, it may be tempting to omit seemingly minor concerns from the status report. Yet, how many times have you worked on a project when a seemingly small concern, identified quite early on, unexpectedly manifests itself at the most inconvenient time? This usually results in “fire-drills”, overtime for the team and far too many uncomfortable, unpleasant discussions with stakeholders. A well-considered status report will go a long way to avoid such scenarios.

The above and many other reasons for status reporting have been extensively written about, including contributing to internal project portfolio and risk management. 

Conclusion

To communicate the crucial and most relevant facts about a project, without diluting the message with superfluous information or worse, omitting or underplaying real concerns or overstating success, is a fine art. However, the potential rewards of doing so consistently throughout a project far outweigh the inconvenience of preparation. Ensuring that the project team and stakeholders remain focused on the purpose, the key message and immediate priorities, is paramount to spurring action, when required, to help overcome challenges and achieve overall project success.  I trust the reasons described inspire us to persevere towards reaching a higher standard in the quality of project reporting. 

Claudia Rassalski, CA, PMP, PMO-CP

Author: Karolina Letowska, PMP

Welcome everyone to this special edition of the PMI Switzerland Chapter Newsletter.

As we are celebrating a big milestone of the chapter – 20 years, we would like to share some memories and anecdotes with our readers. 

Many things have happened in the past two decades. We started in the times when there were no Zoom calls, and when our first Chapter Charter was faxed to the PMI Headquarters in Philadelphia.

We hope you will enjoy the memory lane that we share today and in future newsletters this year.

But before… I would like to say a Big Thank You! to all our current and past: Volunteers, Members and Partners for making this Chapter such an amazing community. We can make this happen thanks to all of you!

All the best,

Karolina Letowska

Author: Benoîte Grisouard, PMP

We, members and volunteers, were all invited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the PMI Switzerland Chapter. In two decades, this community, created with passion and motivation, has been able to participate in the development of the discipline and be an efficient support to Project Managers, experienced or not. This in-person event was an opportunity to directly approach many colleagues I encountered on virtual meeting platforms: We dis-connected to re-connect :)

The afternoon of Sunday 5 September 2021 - with its warm and welcoming atmosphere, had a family reunion vibe to it. We gathered with handwritten name tags and shared friendly cuisine. The "first generation" of PMs dispensed their stories and anecdotes to new members and volunteers; regulars talked over the external influences on their day-to-day activities. A detail stated by a PM in banking was commented on by a PM in the pharmaceutical industry and then taken up by a PM in IT. These friendly discussions gave to this sympathetic community a subtle G20 flair.

The Anniversary team chose for this summer celebration an urban garden that looks like a confidential rooftop near Bern. We enjoyed refreshing cocktails, homemade sausages grilled on meters long BBQ, just like the first PMI Board meetings 20 years ago at Dr. Andrea Behrends’ place. The first board of directors was a distributed team, and it was rare for them to see one another face-to-face. Dr. Andrea Behrends, founder and first chapter president and Martin Härri, former chapter president, joined Karolina Letowska, current president of PMI Switzerland to welcome guests and celebrate 20 years of achievements, collaboration, and determination. They shared anecdotes about the first fundraising in Zurich, a wine testing, or tombolas.

We all had fun together and discussed ideas on how we could strengthen our Chapter. 

It was nice catching up with you. Happy Anniversary PMI Switzerland Chapter!

Benoîte Grisouard, PhD, PMP

Author: Edul Nakra, PMP

Speaker: Peter Taylor

Co-speaker: Tim Stumbles, co-founder of Office Timeline

In this very interactive online event, Peter Taylor, the author of the bestselling project management book ‘The Lazy Project Manager’ led participants through the practical aspects of Project Reporting and getting the most benefit out of Reports.

As many of us can relate to, there are so many different reports: Status Reports, Risk Reports, Board/Executive Reports, Resource Reports, Variance Reports.. and the list goes on. It is sometimes hard to cut through the “noise” in the midst of this.

At the heart of what we do as Project Managers is communicate, and Peter emphasized that the key to this is getting the right information, to the right person, in the right way, at the right time! These are the building blocks. Reporting in itself is NOT Communicating – in order to communicate well, we need to get these key elements right!

Peter also highlighted the 5 top problems with Project Reporting. Keeping these in mind will help you to “get through” to your stakeholders.

“The key to the success probability of your project is to nail stakeholder buy-in..” and “the #1 way is to give them uncomplicated visual project updates...”

Tim Stumbles, co-founder and CEO of Office Timeline then led us through a demonstration of how this can be done with a tool he has helped develop “Office Timeline” – creating standard waterfall, swim-lane, and sub-swim-lane slides.

For a free trial for PMI members visit: https://www.officetimeline.com/pm-trial

Finally, Peter left us with an example of “Picture Visualization” to stress the importance of the visual aspect. If someone said the word “circle”, only 10% of us would remember what we were talking about in 72 hours time. In contrast 65% would remember if the circle were drawn!

After a fascinating presentation, Peter concluded by taking questions, and leaving us all with plenty of practical tips to take away!