(4) How to Write Project Report: Step-By-Step Guide

Make Your Project Reports Speak for Themselves—A Thorough Guide

At some point during the implementation of a project, a certain report has to be generated in order to paint a mental image of the whole project. Ultimately, a project report must maximize the insight gained with minimal effort from the reader. Apart from describing its results, it must also explain the implications of those results to the organization and its business operations.

How to Write and Create Project Reports Part 1
Project Report Free Download Part 2
Additional Sources Part 3

There are a number of ways project reporting helps an organization, a team, and even the project itself and here are some of them:

It tracks the progress of the project

It helps identify risks

It helps manage project cost

It gives stakeholders an insight on how the project is performing

Project Status Report

The most common type of project report, a progress report provides a general state of the project to its stakeholders. It quantifies work performed and completed in measurable terms. It compares this with an established baseline to see if the project is on track or; if adjustments have to be made if the project is behind its schedule. It keeps everyone on the same page and manages each other’s expectations.

Project status reports are accomplished to serve the following purposes;

to keep an updated flow of information in relation to the project’s progress
to immediately address issues and concerns that may come up at any point of the project’s implementation or duration
to document reasons for changes and adjustments made to the original plan for the project
to monitor fund utilization and to ensure that the project expenses are still within the budget
to serve as a basis for decision-making and addressing problems
to keep track of the team’s performance and individual contributions
to act as a uniform procedure for communicating project development to the stakeholders.

Status reports are most effective when they follow a standard form with predefined fields that need to be regularly updated. Doing so will save time and provide consistency and predictability of the information the stakeholders will receive about the status of the project.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

For a status report to be comprehensive, it must include the following elements:

Summary/Overall Health of the Project

Facts on the Project Progress

Target vs. Actual Accomplishments

Analysis

Action(s) Taken

Risks and Issues

Resources

Budget

Schedule

Keys to an Effective Project Status Report

Submit the report on time. A status report is time sensitive and sending it late defeats the purpose of such a report.
Giving complete but inaccurate information is just as bad as giving accurate but incomplete information. Since stakeholders rely on the status report for a heads-up on the project, and its content is used as the basis for decision-making, it is critical that the report provides both complete and accurate information.
Do not cover up bad news or adverse reports as these are all part of the transparency of the status report. Keep in mind that being open with the stakeholders, whether the project is sailing smoothly or not, will benefit both the team and the client, since any problems there are will be immediately given attention and solved.
Be proud of the team’s accomplishments, after all, this is what the clients and the stakeholders will want to know about.
Anticipate questions from the clients or stakeholders and be prepared to answer them.
Be familiar with the culture of the organization and respect the information hierarchy they observe. There are instances when the CEO wants to be the first to know about the contents of these reports before cascading it to his downlines. On the other hand, middle managers will want a head start on these reports so they can also anticipate and prepare for any reaction from the top executives.
Craft the status report in such a way that there will be no information overload. It should contain necessary information that the stakeholders need to know. Lengthy reports will consume not only the writer’s time but also that of the reader. Too many details also give an impression of micro management.

Risk Registers

All projects, or any activities of business, face risks. It is just a matter of how an organization identifies, assesses, analyzes, and monitors these risks. With a Risk Register, an organization is equipped with a tool to better respond to problems that may arise because of these risks. It helps in the decision-making process and enables the stakeholders to take care of the threats in the best way possible.

A Risk Register, also called an Issue Log, is iterative because it will be updated periodically depending on how often the team identifies a potential risk. It may also be updated if the characteristics of the existing potential risks change as the project progresses.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

The Risk Register document contains information about the following:

Risk Identification

Risk Category: Grouping these risks under different categories is helpful. Doing so will provide a way to make a plan of action that will address most, if not all of the risks falling under the same category, saving time, effort, and resources.
Risk Description: Provide a brief explanation of the identified potential risk. The description can be done in a variety of ways depending on the level of detail. A general description can be difficult to address while giving too much detail about the risk may entail a significant amount of work. Three factors to consider when making a risk description are: the way these risks are going to be managed, who will handle them, and the reporting requirements of the person receiving the risk register.
Risk ID: Assign a unique identification code to each risk identified to track it in the risk register easily. Create a system of coding in such a way that the category to which the said risk belongs is easily identifiable.

Risk Analysis

Severity Likelihood	Negligible (1)	Minor (2)	Moderate (3)	Significant (4)	Severe (5)
Low (1)
Medium (2)
High (3)

Risk Evaluation

Severity Likelihood	Negligible (1)	Minor (2)	Moderate (3)	Significant (4)	Severe (5)
Low (1)	Delay in the delivery of office supplies	Natural calamities are damaging the infrastructure.
Medium (2)	Absence of key personnel	Running out of budget
High (3)

Using the table above, the identified risk can be ranked this way:

Risk	Likelihood	Severity	Result	Rank
Natural calamities damaging the infrastructure	1	5	5	2
Running out of budget	2	4	8	1
Delay in the delivery of office supplies	1	2	2	4
Absence of key personnel	2	2	4	3

Risk Treatment

Prevention Plan: This enumerates the steps or action to be taken to prevent the risks from occurring.
Contingency Plan: On the other hand, the contingency plan determines the steps or action to be taken once the risk events have occurred. This program also contains the measures to be taken to reduce the impact of such risks to the project.
Risk Owner: The person responsible for managing risk, and the implementation of the prevention and contingency plans, it can be anyone among the stakeholders—members of the team, a project manager, or project sponsors.
Residual Risk: Sometimes, a risk cannot be entirely eliminated after treatment. Part of it may linger throughout the duration of the project, but once it has been treated, it can be considered as a low-level risk.

Keys to an Effective Risk Register

The first risk register must be created as soon as the project plan and the risk management plan has been approved. This initial risk register must be integrated into the project plan.
Active risks during a particular period must also be included in the project status report.
Risk management is an iterative process which is why the risk register must also be updated from time to time. Updates can be made when new risks are identified or there have been changes in the risks already in the register.
The numerical value assigned to the likelihood and severity levels must remain constant throughout the duration of the whole project.
Likewise, any terms used must be defined, and this definition must be utilized consistently.

Project Closure Report

As the end of a project, a Project Closure Report signals its culmination. Its submission officially concludes a project and implies that funds and resources will no longer be needed, and everything will go back to its status prior to the implementation of the project.

This process is critical as it will officially tie up all loose ends and prevent confusion among stakeholders.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

This particular type of project report summarizes information on the project results, the criteria used to measure the effectiveness of the project delivery process, and the feedback from the stakeholders. Each performance metric includes an assessment and a narration of how the team performed on such metrics.

Budget

This performance metric describes how the team utilized the budget in carrying out the project effectively. Under this performance metric, the following aspects are measured:

Final Cost

Component Breakdown

Budget Variance

Explanations for Key Variances

Schedule

Describe how the team implemented the project within the expected time frame and schedule.

Overall Project Duration

Schedule Variance

The explanations for Key Variances

Change Management

This metric refers to the team’s ability to handle and manage changes throughout the project’s implementation effectively. It is measured through the following:

Total Number of Changes

The impact of the Changes

The highlight of Changes

Quality Management

This particular metric refers to the team’s ability to observe and comply with quality standards during the project’s implementation.

Total Number of Defects Identified

The explanation for Resolved Defects

Risk and Issue Management

This metric deals with how risks and matters that occurred during project implementation were handled and resolved by the team. Key points to include are the following:

Risks

Issues

The impact of the Risks and Issues to the Project

Human Resource Management

This refers to the team’s ability to carry out the project effectively.

Manpower

Project Organization Structure

This metric looks at how the stakeholders participated in the project.

Decision-makers

Communication Management

Under this metric, communication throughout the duration of the project is assessed.

Communication Management Plan

Feedback

Summarize essential feedback collected. Describe the method by which these comments were gathered and who was solicited for feedback. Also include how they responded to each question and briefly discuss which items received great responses from the participants and which ones got few answers.
Take note of common themes or trends of feedback gathered.
From the feedback gathered, also take note of any opportunities from this feedback and discuss how these opportunities can be applied to future projects, or in the organization itself.

Lesson Learned

Give a brief discussion of what the team learned when carrying out the project. Among these learnings, discuss which ones can be applied to future projects and how it will impact not only those future projects but also the whole organization.

Other Metrics

Other points of interest may not have been captured in the Project Status Report and may be included in the Project Closeout Report. Some of these factors include:

Duration and Effort by Project Phase

Benefits Realized

Benchmark Comparisons

Keys to an effective project closure report

The closure report is mostly a summary of all efforts related to the project. It is important to ensure that all highlights of the project have been properly documented so that retrieval of these reports is easier and all efforts will be acknowledged.
Emphasize the high points the project delivered, how efficiently it was done, and what has been learned from the process.
If there are notable variances during the project implementation, make sure to provide a fact-based explanation on it. In addition, the impact of this difference must also be described.
A critical point in a project closure report is establishing the link between the project performance, the lessons learned, and the steps that will be taken by the organization for its continuous improvement. Aside from the project deliverables, another valuable output of a project is the learnings derived from the process and how it will be translated into concrete concepts applicable to the business processes of the organization.

Executive Summary

A little bit different from the types of project reports previously mentioned, an Executive Summary is a distinct kind of report which uses different language. It is a high-level report which aims to provide a bigger and deeper understanding of the project—how it will benefit the organization and how it will fit into future business strategies. It is written with a busy executive in mind, someone who has a lot of important things to do and may find reading a lengthy piece of prose a waste of precious time. Factual and objective, this particular type of project report must be able to provide a realistic status of the project, as business executives understand that everything may not go according to the plan.

Some may confuse an executive summary with an abstract but, in reality, they are clearly distinct from one another and serve a different purpose.

An abstract is usually written for academic or scientific papers. It is written with a topic sentence which, generally, gives an overview of what the article is about. It is, then, supported by two or three supporting sentences which support the main idea of the topic sentence.

An executive summary, on the other hand, is composed of different sections discussing almost every significant aspect of an undertaking. It consists of sequentially arranged key points supported by conclusions and recommendations. Check our in-depth article on how to write an effective executive summary.

Things to Remember in Writing Project Reports

Here are some of the principles that need to be observed in writing an effective project report;