Regular status reporting is the cornerstone of good project communication. Status reporting not only keeps your sponsor and stakeholders up to date, bringing key items to their attention, but it is also a regular self-accountability check-in to help ensure you stay up to date on your projects.
Status reports should include progress information (plan vs actual) for schedule, scope delivery and budget, but they should also include key items from your RAID log including open issues, impending and new risks, and upcoming and recently made decisions. If you are tracking supplemental data in your RAID, which we cover later on, a change log and milestone tracker are also important status items.
If your RAID log is up to date, it’s easy to simply copy & paste this information from your RAID log right into your status communications. I have a few long-time colleagues who manage teams of project managers and say RAID log data is the most important part of a status report.
