Your project success relies on you communicating project status. Use these tips and templates to help

Answer

More detail

Project updates are a crucial part of project and product management.

1. Keep your update short – aim for 5 minutes or less.
   1. Provide some introductory context – remember that everyone’s mind is elsewhere.
   2. Avoid going into detail – just give the headlines!
   3. If there are any issues, provide some suggested solutions.
2. If you have project objectives, compare progress with these objectives.
   1. Show this side-by-side: Targets vs Actual Progress.
   2. RAG Status is a good way of highlighting good and bad progress.
   3. If you bear bad news, it always pays to have some suggested solutions.
3. Provide a 1-page document so that people can take away the key messages.
   1. Once again – keep it simple.
   2. Use a Status Report or Dashboard template (see below).
4. Provide easy-to-understand status indicators – “Red / Amber / Green” (RAG) status for each update item.
   1. RAG Status: this can be achieved with traffic lights, or dials, or just simply the Red, Amber, Green colours.
   2. Dials: While it may seem a bit of a gimmick, dials can be very popular with corporate stakeholders.