Keep Everyone in the Loop with Weekly Status Reports
In this month's newsletter, we discuss tips for providing weekly status
reports in software projects. Standish Group research shows 52.7 percent of IT
projects cost 189 percent of their original estimates. According to the
Standish Group, only 16% of all software development projects are delivered
on-time and on-budget. A staggering 31% of projects are cancelled before they
ever get completed. This newsletter will aid you in providing better
communication with team members, allowing your projects to run more smoothly.
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Newsletter
Sponsored by Software Planner |
This newsletter is sponsored by
Software Planner:
http://www.SoftwarePlanner.com
 Software
Planner is a project collaboration tool that allows you to manage all phases
of your software development. In the initial stages of the project, it
allows you to post functional specifications and post project related
documents (like meeting minutes, client proposals, etc.). As the project
progresses, it allows you to post baseline documents (like detailed designs
and project plans). As development proceeds, it allows your project managers
and developers to track project deliverables.
The developers can update
the percentage complete for all items assigned to them. Once testing begins,
it allows your testers to create test cases and track software defects.
Developers are automatically alerted, by email, as defects are assigned to
them. Team members are alerted as new documents are uploaded or re-uploaded
(like project plan updates, etc.). And each person has the ability to
control the email alerts they wish to receive. Use the discussion forums to
communicate all issues with clients and project team members. Keep your
appointments and to do list on-line and updated at all times.
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Tips for Providing Weekly Status Reports in Software Projects
To deliver software on-time and on-budget,
successful project managers communicate regularly with all members of the team
(management, leaders, testers, programmers, clients, etc). Creating
weekly status reports are great way to ensure that everyone is on the same page
and also benefits the team by stepping back and analyzing how the project is
progressing.
The key to great communication is to
collaborate with team members each day and to create weekly status reports to
summarize your progress and to identify issues that need resolution. Below are a list of
tips for making weekly status reports meaningful:
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Use the Red/Yellow/Green Metaphor -
Status reports are designed to show accomplishments and to identify areas that
need attention. Using a Red/Yellow/Green metaphor is a great way to
separate those areas of the status report:
Red - List
critical issues that are keeping you from delivering on schedule and on budget.
These items need management help in resolving. Example:
You can not begin testing because management has not approved the purchase of
your test server.
Yellow - List
issues that management should be aware of but do not keep you from delivering on
schedule and under budget. These items may not need management help in
resolving. Example: Your testing team is running 2 days behind
schedule, but the testing team has agreed to work the weekend to catch up.
Green - List
accomplishments or progress made on deliverables for the week.
Example: Provide a bulleted list of deliverables that should have been
achieved this week, along with their status.
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Identify Week's Priorities - Identify
next weeks tasks and priorities so that everyone knows what things are expected
of them in the upcoming week. Different teams also use that to ensure that
any tasks that are dependent on them are all in alignment as to be ready for
those deliverables to be worked on.
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Provide Metrics - Providing metrics
allow your team to step back and see things in the bigger picture. Typical
metrics should include defect metrics (like number of defects by
status/severity/priority, etc) and test case metrics (number of test cases
run/passed/failed, etc). It could also include metrics regarding
deliverables and your risk management efforts.
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Discussion Forums - Create a discussion
forum for your team members. Post the weekly status reports in the
discussion forum so that they are automatically distributed via email and a
history is kept of each weekly status.
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Template - We have created a template we
use for the weekly status report. To download a copy click
here.
Below are some helpful templates to aid you in developing software solutions
on-time and on-budget:
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