101 Project Management Problems and How to Solve Them

69. What are the best ways to communicate project status?

Project status–reporting problems fall into two categories: There’s too much of it, or there’s too little. Striking an appropriate balance is not difficult, but it does take a bit of effort.

Reporting Regular Status

Your main objective in project status reporting is to provide the information people need while keeping your communications overhead under control. If you provide reports to lots of people, the overhead can be overwhelming. It’s best to craft a format that can be easily edited to serve multiple audiences, so you do not get stuck writing a dozen different reports every week. One technique that serves this end is to use the “inverted pyramid” style of writing employed by newspapers. ...