Progress Reports in Project Management: Definition, Process & More
Writing progress reports might be a chore. But it’s quite necessary.
It helps your team stay on track, manage resources, and identify potential roadblocks with product analytics.
So how can you get started?
Let’s go over:
- What a progress report is and its role in your company.
- When to create a progress report and the key elements to include.
- The process of creating and sharing project progress reports.
- Best practices for making your reports more efficient and effective.
What are progress reports?
Progress reports detail a project’s advancement toward specific objectives and deliverables. They usually offer a snapshot of project status, milestones achieved, and tasks in progress.
These reports also highlight any encountered obstacles, identified risks, and the required actions to address them.
Why are progress reports important for the project team?
Let’s be honest: most of us hate writing progress reports.
However, reflecting on and documenting the progress of a project is essential for its successful delivery. Plus, it enables you to learn and develop good practices for future projects.
Here’s how a progress report can benefit your team:
- Tracks project status and milestones: It ensures the team and stakeholders are aligned on current progress, have the right expectations, and make informed decisions.
- Identifies roadblocks: Shows issues that could affect deadlines or resource allocation. It allows the team to collaborate on solutions to overcome them and move the project forward smoothly.
- Aids future planning: Consistent progress reports help teams learn from past projects, improve processes, and optimize productivity. It makes the process more systematic and less chaotic than when a team works without enough information.
When to create a report for sharing project progress?
The best moments to create a report depend on your team dynamics, the scope of the project, and your approach.
That said, here are a few common scenarios when reports are necessary:
- At the end of each project phase (e.g., initiation, planning, execution).
- After each Agile sprint or milestone.
- At key intervals in a project lifecycle (waterfall project management).
- For quarterly or annual reviews.
- During project retrospectives or post-mortem reviews.
For example, in Scrum, you’d have a retrospective at the end of the spring, normally every couple of weeks, when the product owner reports on the outputs.
What is in a progress report?
The content of a progress report can vary depending on the organization, the purpose of the project, the industry, and even the culture of your team.
But in general, it typically includes the following elements:
- Project overview: Start with a brief recap on goals, timelines, and current status.
- Milestones achieved: Show a list of key milestones or tasks completed since the last report.
- Current challenges: List and detail any obstacle or risk you identified.
- Budget and schedule review: An update on whether the project is on track regarding budget and deadlines. The estimate whether it’s going to need more time and resources to finish the project
- Next steps: Explain what future tasks need to be done to overcome obstacles, and add adjustments for the upcoming review period if necessary.
Prepare Data-Driven Progress Reports with Userpilot
How can a project manager develop a progress report?
Let’s have a quick look at the steps needed to create progress reports.
1. Define the report goals
Start writing the report by clarifying its purpose. Is it to report on achieving a major milestone or perhaps a monthly report to review the progress made since the previous report? Make this clear to your readers.
It’s also a good practice to provide some context about the project, like its main objective and its current status. Make this brief and point your readers to your project charter, where they can find the details.
2. Decide which team members to be involved
Sometimes there are more competent team members to create a progress report or share its findings than the project manager. Even if they oversee the process, they often require insights from colleagues with specialist knowledge.
For example, if the project is going through a stage when you’re working on technical deliverables, you may require help from a member of the engineering team. If you’ve just launched a major marketing campaign, the marketing team leader may be a better person to deliver the update.
A word of warning though: while it’s perfectly fine to delegate parts of the report or lean into others’ expertise, don’t develop the habit of dumping unpleasant work on your colleagues. Ultimately, it’s the project manager’s responsibility.
3. Collect information to include in the progress reports
As we mentioned before, the details of what you include in the report and how you gather the data will vary from project to project.
So for this step, make sure to collect all the information you need before putting it together (e.g. tasks and milestones completed, obstacles, expenses, steps left, etc.).
For example, if you’re writing a report on the results of a beta test, you can include customer feedback and use a product analytics tool like Userpilot to see how users are behaving in-app.
Then, keep everything organized on their respective progress report page so you can later come up with the next steps, re-calculate the budget, and develop a strategy.
4. Create the report and share project updates
Once you have the data, you write the report.
If it’s the first one you’re writing, check if your organization uses any specific template, as this can save you a fair bit of time. Alternatively, create your template that reflects the aims of the project or simply look for one on the internet and adapt it to your needs.
If there are multiple people contributing to the report, use a cloud storage solution with version control to avoid duplicating work and ensure that everybody is working with the latest version of the report.
5. Identify changes in the project plan
One of the sections in the report is likely to deal with planned actions and recommendations for the future.
This may include a review of the project schedule or budget.
For instance, if you’re running over the budget and behind schedule or the scope of the project has changed since its initiation, you will have to re-estimate the duration or cost.
6. Develop an actionable plan for future reference
Once you’ve reviewed the progress and analyzed the new information that has become available since the last review, use the insights to plan what you need to do next.
The plan should include a list of the objectives for the new review period, specific tasks needed to achieve them, deadlines, and the team members responsible.
Finally, recommend the next review date if that’s within your remit.
Best practices to follow when writing progress reports
Now that we have the basics covered let’s look at a few tips on how to write effective progress reports and potentially save you time and effort.
Analyze previous progress reports for improvements
Start writing your next report by reviewing the previous ones. See if you can spot any areas for improvement.
It’s also a good idea to collect feedback from the team members involved and stakeholders. In this way, you will be able to tailor the reports to their needs and expectations.
Use simple language to aid understanding for each team member
Product and project managers work with internal and external stakeholders from multiple backgrounds.
To communicate the findings of your report, use language that’s easy to understand for all of them, regardless of their expertise in the field.
How?
For starters, avoid jargon and technical language. Try to explain complex concepts as if you were talking to a high school student.
This is sometimes easier said than done, so use tools to help you. For example, you can use the Hemmingway editor to assess the readability of your text and then an AI writing assistant to adjust it to make it easier to understand.
Finally, try to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. If you’re writing for senior leadership, appeal to things that matter to them the most, like business goals.
Quantify progress wherever possible
Instead of relying on generalizations, use data to back up your conclusions whenever it’s possible. This will make your report more reliable and trustworthy.
If you’re in the SaaS space, this shouldn’t be an issue because the majority of user interactions with the product happen in the digital space, so it’s very easy to track and analyze them. For example, if your project is to launch a course, you can include all sorts of information about how many students enrolled and completion rates in your course progress report.
Just get the right analytics tool, and you will be able to track every user’s click, scroll, hover, or tap.
Use visual aids to show progress
Data can be daunting and hard to understand, so make it more accessible for your readers by incorporating visuals.
Using graphs and charts to illustrate progress, trends, or comparisons is going to make the data not only easier to understand but also more memorable – even if someone doesn’t remember the exact figures, they’re likely to remember the overall trend.
Product analytics tools offer visualization features, so this shouldn’t be a problem, but if yours doesn’t, export the data to a spreadsheet and create the visuals there.
Automate the process for creating the progress report
Apart from automatically generating visuals, there are also other ways to automate the process of creating progress reports.
With project management tools like Asana or Jira, you can set up automatic status updates and generate detailed reports at regular intervals.
Most of them offer integrations with storage and communication tools, like Dropbox or Slack, so you can easily collaborate with your teammates and collect the necessary information.
Finally, remember to use templates not to replicate the work every time you write a report.
Conclusion
There are two ways to think about the reports.
You can view them as an unnecessary nuisance that only adds to your workload and is a source of constant frustrations.
Alternatively, you can treat them as an opportunity to reflect on and improve your processes for more effective project delivery.
If you’re in the latter camp and would like to learn how Userpilot can help you prepare data-driven progress reports that resonate with your stakeholders, book the demo!
Progress reports FAQs
What are the three types of progress reports?
- Memos: Provides updates on tasks and activities on a brief memo.
- Email or letter: Summarize achievements, roadblocks, and tasks on an email. Mostly used in a more informal setting.
- Formal report: Offer a broader view of project milestones, budget updates, and overall progress. It’s used in a formal setting where all stakeholders meet to discuss the next course of action.
What is a progress report presentation?
A progress report presentation is a visual summary of a project’s progress, typically delivered to stakeholders during meetings. It covers milestones achieved, current challenges, budget status, and future action items.
What are the four steps to writing a progress report?
- Define the report’s goals and purpose.
- Gather necessary data and team inputs.
- Organize the report’s structure (overview, milestones, challenges, next steps).
- Present and share the report with stakeholders.
Prepare Data-Driven Progress Reports with Userpilot
