A project status report is an important document written to keep track of the work performed on a project with time. Projects are large tasks that take time to complete ranging from weeks to even years depending upon the size of a project. Companies take projects from their customers and have them completed under their management through different contractors or their own workers. These include every type of project from official work related to computer software design to the construction of large structures. Projects are managed by project heads, which are experts in their relative fields like engineers, managers, designers, accountants, etc. These people are responsible for timely execution and issues related to any project under their supervision. The timing factor is an important feature in the success of any project and hence project status reports are for evaluating the work pace and hence keeping the ones responsible aware of the working condition on a project.
This helps the supervisors or managers of a project to take decisions according to the schedules and to meet the deadlines. A project report is written depending on the target time to achieve project completion. Projects that take longer time like years to complete need project reports written after months or usually twice a month. Projects which are planned for weeks or months usually get reports written on a daily or weekly basis, respectively.
Here are previews and download links of Project Status Report Templates created using MS Word,
Most Important Points in Project Status Report
A project status report is meant to inform the company about the status of work being done from time to time, hence keeping them up to date. Project status reports can easily be created nowadays with the help of predesigned templates available on the internet. However, to write a project report one must be aware of a few important points. First of all the report should be titled according to the project, so as to avoid any misconceptions back at the office. All the information should be included, including the project name, supervisor, time duration, and name of the person responsible for the project.
The project status report should include a complete timeline of the tentative dates of different milestones to be achieved as per plan. This helps in determining a specific status report whether the work is being done as per plan or if there is any need to change the strategy.
A graphical representation of data is a good way to interpret the stats. Including previous data in the report in the form of a graph helps evaluate the performance of any team on a project.
Any issues encountered in the current status report should be mentioned in the report. Any issues resolved after the previous status report must also be mentioned in the current report.
It is an essential part of the status report to include financial tracking of all the expenses done on the project from time to time. This also helps to track any changes in the allocated funds if there are any changes in the material prices in the market.
The date must be included in the project status report to differentiate individual reports from the rest.