Introduction
This may be obvious but it’s worth saying if only because it’s so obvious that it’s easily forgotten when you are busy… Simple, clear, concise project status reporting can transform the success of your project and the way you are perceived by key stakeholders. Our project on a page template for Powerpoint will help you with this.
Over the years I’ve attended many project management workshops and training sessions and they nearly all focus on the technical aspects of managing and budgeting within large projects. If reporting and communications is considered at all they tend to assume that all your stakeholders are equally engaged and skilled at reading summary reports.
Senior management seldom has the time to read through a 30-page progress report, what they want is a Summary on a Page (SOAP) or an Executive Summary Project Status Report. In this blog, I will share with you a “Summary on a Page” template that I’ve now used on numerous projects and companies with great success.
The Project on a Page Template
You can use this project on a page template as it comes but I suggest instead that you or someone in your company marketing department adapts the colour scheme, fonts, branding etc to match your companies house style or style guide for best results.
Please note, if you are working in a large organisation you may have a Project Management Office (PMO) who will already have a project reporting template they expect you to use.
Let me talk you through this simple one-page summary report step by step:
Pick your reporting period
You need to decide on your reporting period. I’d recommend the project manager produces a summary report on Friday after having walked around all the key players to ensure that report is as up to date and as accurate as possible. Doing this on a Friday lets you be clear about what has been done that week and more importantly be precise about what must happen next week to keep the project on track
The management summary.
The Management Summary box should be used to give a very brief commentary on where the project is – certainly no more than 100 words. You should leave the bullet points to do most of the talking. Focus on what has been done and then what needs to happen next week, only picking on the 2 or 3 key things that need to be in the management summary. Remember that in a summary “Less is more”.
Project Issues & Risks
As a project manager, you should be maintaining a risk register. On the summary report, you need to use your skills to pull out the 3 to 5 key risks items that you want to communicate. Feel free to include the full risk register as an appendix for anyone who wants all the details.
Key project actions
You will no doubt have a long list of actions or work break down from your project plan. In your summary report pick out 3 to 5 high impact actions that you want to communicate. Technically if you have items on a critical path these really should be on the management one-page summary report. I always include the full action log/register as an appendix (see below).
Project key milestones
Pull out of your project plan all the key milestones. At a summary level just use simple RAG Reporting (Red=Bad/Trouble, Amber=Slipping/Needs attention, Green=On Track). This lets the summary report focus on the outcome or delivery rather than how you get there in detail.
High level, rolled up Gantt Chart
I like to include a very high-level timeline or Gantt chart just pulling out the key milestones/activities. You can show the plan and actual on here. If you have identified a set of high-level work packages for your project it, depending on your project and the number of work packages, it may be helpful to show them on the summary Gantt Chart.
Conclusion
Don’t feel constrained by how I have used the space in my template. I’ll routinely rework this from project to project depending on what is most appropriate. In this template, I don’t for example have a summary box for Budget but reporting if actual or committed spend is on track is often a requirement on larger projects.
As a project manager, I find that focusing on clear concise reporting actually helps me manage the project and find the time taken to produce these reports to be time well spent actually managing the project better. Use the report as a working document, try not to have separate documents so you are not wasting time duplicating content.
Project Action Log Template
Above is a simple Project Action Log template that I normally include as an appendix to the summary report for anyone who wants to see the detail. The action log is the detailed list of all the work that needs to happen on the plan and any follow-up actions that are identified during project review meetings.
This is great for small projects but for larger projects, it would probably be better to swap this out for a list of work packages and then include a page for each work package.
Assign tasks to people not teams
Pro Tip: Don’t have a group of people or a department as the owner on issues – make sure it’s a named person with ownership and responsibility for seeing that the issue is resolved to the agreed schedule.
Project Issue Log Template
This is the issue list template that I typically use. The key is to make sure that every issue has a clear owner and a priority (RAG status). You will normally also want a column for the agreed completion date.
What is a RAG and a BRAG status?
RAG Stands for Red, Amber, Green and is a simple traffic light colour coding scheme that is used to show the status of project tasks/work packages. Red=Bad/Quality Issues/Over Budget/Running Late, Amber=Slipping/Needs attention otherwise time, cost and quality are at risk, Green=On Track and within Time, Cost and Quality constraints.
Although most people are familiar with a RAG status or project traffic lights these days it’s actually a good idea to use BRAG statuses instead of RAG. BRAG stands for Blue, Red, Amber and Green. This addresses the problem with RAG that completed tasks are shown with a Green status but that implies that they are not over the finish line and could still turn amber or red. The Blue in BRAG was introduced so that tasks that are finished (or done if you are using the Agile methodology) can clearly be shown as Complete and over the finish line.
What to consider before setting a RAG status to Amber or Red
People don’t like surprises, so it’s poor form to put an action straight from green to red. Even going from Green to Amber should be proceeded in previous reports by flagging some potential concerns. More importantly, as a project manager, you should never present an Amber or Red RAG status to a customer or senior management without a plan for getting the task back to green. You would also be advised to socialise any Amber or Red issues with key project stakeholders before you send out your report or present it at a meeting.
Download my project on a page templates
Summary Project Status Report Template for Microsoft Word
Good luck using the template. I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions for improvements. I plan to update this template from time to time as an I receive feedback.
Risk Register
You may also be asked to produce a Risk Register for your project.
The above diagram shows an example of a classic risk register. This is based on the Microsoft Word Risk Register Template which you can download below. The key features are:
ID: This allows you to uniquely identify each risk
Risk Description: A short description of the risk
Risk Impact: A brief statement on what would happen if the risk event occurred.
Risk Probability: This is your assessment of the probability of this risk event happening. You are asked to score the probability from 1 (low) to 5 (high) in the example template.
Risk Impact: This is your assessment of the impact of the risk if it happened. You are asked to score the probability from 1 (low) to 5 (high) in the example template.
Risk Priority: This is the probability multiplied by the impact. You can then look this up in the risk matrix to see which RAG status it should be given.
Risk Owner: Risks should be assigned to an owner who is then responsible for reducing the probability and the impact of a potential risk.
Mitigation: This is a brief description of the steps being taken to mitigate or accept the risk.
In this example the Risk and Impact scores range from 1 to 5. This is simple but I tend to prefer to use the Fibonacci sequence instead, ie 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This spreads out the higher impact and higher probability risks from the rest of the pack. Do consider this on larger projects where lots of risks are being identified.
You might also like to add columns to the risk register to show the direction of travel on each risk. Use an upward arrow if the risk score is higher since the last report, downward arrow if the risk mitigation is working or an equals sign if there has been no change.
Free Risk Register Templates
Risk Register Template – Microsoft Word – Free download – click here.
I have written another blog about managing project risks and risk reporting – click here.
Project on a Page
If someone asks for a Project on a Page document, they may be referring to a proposal for a potential future project. If that is the case you need a one page project proposal template. This should set out the problem or opportunity which is to be addressed by the project. Also include the cost of the project and the financial benefit and the payback / return. In many businesses you will be asked to include a high-level P&L (profit and loss).
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a project dashboard template?
In most organisations, it would be perfectly acceptable to use the Summary on A Page template above as your project dashboard. You might want to create an even high-level summary that just pulls out a few KPI’s or metrics as dials for example percentage complete, budgeted cost of work performed, the actual cost of work performed etc. If I get some time in the coming weeks I’ll add a page to cover this in more detail with some examples.
What is a project overview template?
If someone has asked you for a Project Overview Template they are almost certainly referring to our Project Summary on a Page template shown above.
Do you have a project report template for Word?
If there is demand for a Word version of my templates I will certainly create one. However these days, I spend more time in Powerpoint and Excel. Each tool has its benefits but I find that Powerpoint encourages you to be brief and create summaries that are ready to be shared in the Boardroom, whereas if you do your reporting in Word, you will still probably need to create a Powerpoint slide or two for a Board meeting.
Do you have a project report example?
The template has some example entries within it. However, if you are new to an organization, I always recommend asking to see a few previous project reports to get a feel for what is expected. Many large organizations will have a PMO (Project Management Office) who will tell you what is needed. In this case, they should have Project Support staff who can assist you with this.
I’m looking for a Project update template?
We recommend you use our Project on a Page summary template shown above.
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