How To Write A Project Management Report

Paul Burke

Senior Writer

February 11, 2022

8 min read

Any business, large or small, requires effective communication between employees and departments. Regular project management reports enable staff to see the quantity of completed work, the state of individual project components, and the overall project status more effectively.

The presence of various types of communication channels, such as Flowlu and Slack, makes the process easier, but there are times when one needs a simple report, for example, for the stakeholders or commissions. Let’s figure out what goes in the project management report.

What Does a Project Management Report Include?

Reports identify problems, reduce risks, and ensure that you, as a business, follow the right path to achieve project goals. Project management status reports are important for clients as well.

They give them confidence that their money is being properly distributed and that the project will be completed on time. There are several types of project status reports:

• Weekly report. It includes a variety of statistics and can be completed within an hour if the client requests it;
• Monthly report. It shows the overall progress and development of the project (budget, costs, status of results and any major risks or obstacles);
• Quarterly status reports. They cover longer periods (from 3-4 months).

The data content of the report may vary from project to project. Each of them, however, should include the following information:

• Overview;
• Project milestone demonstrating the completion of activities and the start of new ones;
• Available budget;
• The list of tasks;
• Risks;
• Issues;
• Measures implemented during the project;
• Decisions and latest project updates.

If something goes wrong with the project, the report will help your colleagues understand what went wrong and eliminate it as soon as possible. As the reviews of companies show, writing services reviews websites can significantly ease data reporting by providing the most accurate reports.

Herewith, one in four companies, however, prefer using specialized project management software that allows them to keep all data in a secure cloud space. Here are the steps you should take to write a good project management report:

1. Assign a Title to the Report

You can use the project name for the report. If you do several reports on one project, you can mark it with the date.

For example:

Project Management Status Report 02/08.

2. Project Vision

This should be a brief explanation of what your project is about and what its main purpose/vision is. Express your thoughts in a simple manner. This section should include 2-3 sentences. Its goal is to provide information in a condensed form to those who do not have time to read the entire report.

For example:

We hope to increase building material sales with the help of this project by implementing an e-mail marketing campaign.

3. Project Status (As Scheduled, Under Threat, or Postponed)

Find a project management tool that allows you to keep your colleagues updated on the status of the project and whether everything is going as planned. One method is to use a colour coding system (green marks – everything goes as planned, yellow – some operations are at risk of being postponed, red – operations are postponed).

For example:

The project’s status (highlight with green colour): The drip email design has been approved. Currently, there is no budget issue.

Or, you can add the tags and even create your own custom fields with the statuses specific to your business.

4. Project Budget

Share project planned expenses and compare them against actual numbers. You might also consider including an overall percentage spent on the project.

For example:

62% spent ($17,250.00 planned vs. $10,850.00 actual)

5. The Tasks Completed This Week/Month/Quarter

List the tasks that have been completed within the timeframe specified. Use tagged lists. You can also include hyperlinks to required sources, tables, etc.

For example:

• The team received approval for three house room layouts [here you can attach a link to approved layouts];
• The project has been transferred to the construction team,
• The delivery dates for the materials have been finally confirmed.

6. Things One Plans to Complete the Next Week

Make a list of the tasks and milestones you intend to complete soon. Use the tagged lists here as well.

For example:

• Consider the development of three models of finishing work for living rooms;
• Perform internal quality control on the materials provided;
• Transfer of all materials required for finishing work to the builders.
• Monday: Approval of room models
• Tuesday: Launch of room development

7. Project Problems

In this section, you can highlight the issues that are preventing you from progressing.

For example:

If we do not receive feedback from the client, we risk missing the determined deadline.

8. Extra Sections (Optional)

Depending on the project, you can also include a few optional but useful items in the report:

• Links to your project’s schedule;
• References to project outcomes at a relevant phase;
• Thanks to the team members;
• Links to industry trends.

How To Create a Project Status Report In Flowlu

Flowlu business management platform allows you to generate reports based on the indicated project stages and milestones, as well as milestone reports.

• Go to your project page and navigate to the Work Structure tab.

• Click on the three-dot button near the project progress bar and select the option to export the report in Microsoft Word format.

• Open the report in Word or Google Docs. Flowlu automatically adds project name, current date, project manager and client. Plus, you can see all the stages and milestones with reports in your document.

• The document can be edited and supplemented with any information you want such as links to other resources or important notes.

Conclusion

You do not need to report the status of your project from scratch every time. There is software that allows you to not only create but also share existing templates with the team.

One should note that you should not delay the preparation of a project management report until the last minute. Start working on it and add information as events happen in real-time. If someone asks for an immediate report on the project status, you will always have some material to show.

About the Author

Frank Hamilton is a blogger and translator from Manchester. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.