Project Status Report Form: Fill & Download for Free

In one of our latest blog articles, we published 50+ free project management templates. Here are some suggestions:1. Project CharterThe foundation of all project management documentation lies in the project charter, a document that clearly defines the purpose and objectives of the project, the project’s scope, roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, and other vital elements. A well established and comprehensive project charter will ensure that no high-level questions are left unanswered.The project charter serves as the reference document during the duration of the project management process so that all those involved can access critical pieces of information necessary for keeping the project on track, such as project constraints, authorities, high-level budget figures, risks, and justifications for undertaking the project in the first place.PROJECT CHARTER TEMPLATESProject Charter Template by FilestageThis free project charter template from Filestage keeps all the essential information in one simply stated spreadsheet. Sections include General Project Information, Roles And Responsibilities, Project Outcomes/Constraints/Risks/Contingency Plans, Schedule of Deliverables, Project Methodologies and Resources, and contact Information For All Parties Involved. Each section includes expandability for additional entries and notes.Project Charter Template by Excellence In Financial ManagementOn his website, Excellence in Financial Management, Matt Evans provides a free excel project charter template. This particular template is filled in with examples, a feature that is especially useful for people new to project management. The basic headers include all of what one may expect in a project charter template and a little extra.Project Charter Template by Memorial UniversityThis two-page project charter document template provided by Memorial University has a much softer look while still containing sections for entering the essential information relevant to your project. Relevant points of contacts are listed first, followed by the stated need (project justification), and the project description and budget. All other relevant information follows.2. Project PlanA project plan is related to a project charter but in a much more detailed way. Where project charters stop, project plans begin. A well thought out project plan will take all conceptual details of the project into consideration before any actual execution begins.A project plan is your tool for thinking the project through from start to finish, taking into consideration all factors and stakeholders such as stages, and steps within stages, needed to achieve the project goal, task scheduling, responsibilities assignment, protocols formulation within each stage of the project, quality control measures, comprehensive cost estimation, and phase by phase risk assessment.PROJECT PLAN TEMPLATESProject Plan Template by FilestageFilestage’s document-based project plan used varying colors to denote different key sections necessary for an effective project plan. Fields are populated by responses to key questions intended to drive towards the essential components of each category. For example, the primary question for the Task Scheduling section is “What are the phases, tasks, and subtasks?”Project Plan Template by ProjectManagerThis nine-page project plan template is an appropriate choice for complex project planning. The table of contents appears on the second page, after the document control portion of the project plan. Document control provides a chain of custody from document owner to approvers so that all the appropriate boxes can be checked before the plan proceeds.Project Plan Template by AtlassianA simple and straightforward project plan template provided by Confluence provides all of the primary, most necessary components. This is an appropriate template for small or individual projects not requiring an enormous amount of detail.The document first identifies the team members, then defines the problem space, the hypothesis, and relevant background information.3. Project ScopeThe bounds of the project are delineated within the project scope, a statement that defines scope inclusions and exclusions, or in other words, what will happen and what can’t happen. In the process of using a template to determine scope, the shape of the project boundaries will begin to form as the scope becomes more specific.A good template will help you make your scope specific and measurable. Project stakeholders must have a tangible measure to determine what is within or outside of scope. Once you’ve identified and defined the project scope with specificity, it is ready to be approved or revised.PROJECT SCOPE TEMPLATESProject Scope Template by MyPMThe scope statement template provided by MyPM identifies the boundaries of the project and allows space for some other detail as well. This template is an excellent choice for managers who may not see the need for a whole suite of project management documents and would prefer some to be consolidated into dual-purpose items.Project Scope Template by NHS EducationThis NHS Education template illustrates a good example of an organization-specific project scope template. Each category is accompanied by an explanation and directions for what kind of information to provide. This type of template is most suitable for a project that’s low risk and more conceptual in nature.Project Scope Template by The State Of ColoradoThis comprehensive seven-page project scope packet provided by the state of Colorado complete with table of contents shows how detailed project scopes can become. While not all the information in this particular example is necessary in project scope, the additional information makes communication and expectation maintenance easier to achieve.4. Project Status ReportThe key to communication during the iteration of a project is a well defined, but not cluttered, project status report. A project status report is a dynamic document produced or updated on a regular basis that provides critical information to stakeholders and keeps communication fluid between all team members.A project status report serves as an indicator of progress made throughout the project, identifies hiccups along the way, and avoids missed steps via clear and updated documentation. It is one of the best ways to keep all parties involved accountable. A well-written project status reveals helpful information while avoiding extraneous, irrelevant detail. The following project report templates will help you get started.PROJECT STATUS REPORT TEMPLATESProject Status Report Template by The California Department Of TechnologyThe comprehensive status report template created by California Department Of Technology investigates every component relevant to whether or not a particular project is on track. It asks critical questions such as “Is the project on track to achieve the objectives in the approved timeframe,” while also providing data tables to be populated with relevant supporting information.Project Status Report Template by Ontario Local Health Integration NetworkA concise, yet detailed project status report template provided by Ontario Local Health Integration Network highlights the most essential information needed to get a concrete idea of the project’s status. This easy to use template begins with a color-coded project progress estimation that ranges from “on track” to “not started”.Project Status Report Template by MicrosoftThis Microsoft Office project status report template uses color and shade to quickly highlight the essential elements of the project concerning progress status in areas such as project overview, budget overview, and risk and issue history. A good option for small business with smaller scale projects, this template is clean and straightforward.5. Project ProposalOften, your project requires approval or sponsorship, financial or otherwise, from stakeholders. To adequately inform key participants about your prospective project, and supply them with all the information necessary to make an intelligent decision regarding approval, a project proposal is needed.A project proposal usually comes in a document or pdf format with a table of contents listing all sections included. A typical project proposal will consist of components discussing requirements, scope, budget, and any other pertinent information needed for stakeholders to decide on the project. Proposals can be as short as one to two pages or as long as hundreds of pages.If you are interested in more templates, feel free to read the whole article: https://blog.filestage.io/project-management-templates/.

I moved back from a Manager role to a Technical role in an Indian IT company.If the question is why do Indian IT employees intend to progress/grow as managers instead of technical roles, below is not the answer. This answer is why managers move away from technical skills.As a manager, you’re so busy with the operations and project management that you hardly get time to use, polish and renew your technical skills.Most of the middle managers in the Indian IT do not sit idle or browse on trading portals, do chatting on mobiles as most of the freshers/developers perceive. Of course, there’d be some lazy foxes as would be in other levels.As a manager leading a 45 member team, half of my day would go in daily Operations -(Budgeting, Reporting, Staffing, Billing & Invoicing, Approvals, writing/editing SoWs, CRs, etc. A quarter of the day would go in Project Management - Metrics, Quality reports (Milestones, Productivity, CoQ, etc.), Requests creation/management, Task allocation & tracking, Project Plan (MPP/Internal tools, Estimates), Escalations, Status Reports, Client Communication, Procurement of space & hardware, etc. Another quarter of the day would go in People Management like Approvals for leaves, on-duty, Performance Appraisals, Hearing to team’s aspirations, Conflict resolution,On-boarding, Separations, Interviewing potential replacements, etc.In addition, there would be ad-hoc works like RFPs (Proposals), Client Visits, ODC Management, BCP/BCMS (Business Continuity), TownHall preparations, Interviews on weekends…On an average of 30 minutes for each person, it took me 20 hours or 3 full days to just have an Appraisal conversation with each of my team. Later, we had to spend time in filling the forms in the system, meetings with the higher managers on determining and begging/bargaining for good ratings for the team.Now, you tell where’s the time for the managers to be upto date with the latest trends.

Hi Nataliya,Thanks for asking for my input.I am a firm advocate of project status reports and dashboards. When completed correctly these are a valuable tool to both the project manager and PMO.A good project manager should be able to take 30 minutes a week and reflect on what has gone well, what are the challenges and then reflect on what needs to be done in the next period.Poor use is when the project manager just uses the report as a “form filling” exercise.The quality and value can be improved by the PMO reviewing and challenging the status report.This should give a good view on project health when done well.The PMO can take the project status reports into consolidated dashboards and show trends on performance. It also allows for overall trends across many projects for themes to be identified.The following is an article I wrote on improving the quality of project reports.How to improve the quality of project status reports - PM MajikRegardsPM Majik