Reflection on “Anatomy of a Highly Effective Status Report by Sandra Swanson, June 2014”

This article discussed the status reports and how to generate an effective one. I consider this article to be related directly to one of the knowledge areas in project management, which is the communication part. Many experts agree that one of the greatest threat to the success of projects is in fact a failure to communicate; and as the complexity of project increases, the communication becomes harder and harder, because of the large number of the stakeholder involved in that particular project, and that is why it is crucial for the project manager to keep this part under control.

One of the tools that are used in the project communication is the status report, and it is really important to understand the job of that report in order to generate an effective one. In any status report, it is very important to understand that a status report should let the sponsors know what the project team needs and when, so it should be simple, short and well structured; it should point out the factors that will help the project succeed, and not covering the details. One of the tools that can help saving time and getting to the point fast is the color coding mechanism that is also used in most of the project dashboards, which is another effective tool that can make the communication and information transfer much easier in the projects; it can alert you to any changes in documents, and that makes the process more alive, and having one place for all the project documents makes the process efficient.

Additionally, it is important to understand your audience, and finding out what they are looking for in your status report, and also making sure that decision makers and other stakeholders will keep reading it by keeping the report short but very informative. Another good thing to have in these reports is avoiding naming people and trying to stay objective through focusing on the activities. Finally, the delivery method and timing of the status report should be considered as well, and can be accomplished though a better understanding to the stakeholders and their schedules.

Personally, I have been involved in many mega projects, and one in particular I remember very well, Prince Mohammed Bin Abd Al Aziz International Airport in Al-Madina in KSA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What I noticed while working on that project is that there were a lot of communications gaps, and there was no clear communication plan, so we had many project emergency-travelling to Egypt where the consultant was, we didn’t prepare for our meeting well; the main contractor who was our customer was the reason for all that confusion; they were overwhelmed and behind schedule and that pressure was getting to all the subcontractors, and we were part of that loop. Another issue was with the status reports that we used to get from the main contractor, and in those, it was too detailed, and it would take us more than an hour to analyze it and try to get a good understanding for what was going on. We used to distribute a copy to all the key players on the project, and after they go through the report, we would set in the meeting room to make sure that we all got the same understanding for the report which had too many information, and that made all of us to feel overwhelmed and wasted our time as well.

Some of the lessons that I learned from this article is that if the project manager cannot explain the status of the project in a few words, sometimes there are underlying issues, knowing that the status report is not the time to ask for assistance, and that should be done as soon as a problem is found. 360-feedback is a great tool also to be used in order to keep everyone involved and engaged. It was also mentioned that the time is one the most valuable resource we have, and our communication will be more effective if we can respect that. It is also important to review the status report with other key stakeholders before distributing it, and if bringing awareness to an issue is needed, sending the status report should be followed up with a phone call or a personal meeting.