Project Status Report Template

Project Status Report Template
By Rob Redmond

A good status report is short, brief, and tells a lot with very little. The attached file is about as minimalist as I could make it. It does not tell the dates that have passed, therefore the manager viewing it will not be able to see where the schedule went wrong. Nor are plan vs. actual start and stop dates visible. You could easily add these.

Project Status Example

Example Project Status Report Template

The most important item is the bar chart, made manually with two simple boxes, a black triangle, and some labels. It tells quite a bit with a very intuitive graphic: overall status, percent complete, original planned percent complete for this date, and how much is left to go. You might be surprised if you use this that it contains more information than your boss is used to getting.

Big projects with millions on the line usually have a more complex format with multiple slides. The example above is good enough for a small, low-visibility effort that only needs minimal reporting.

Here’s the Project Status Template in Powerpoint.

Rob Redmond studied sociology, psychology, and political science as an undergraduate before entering the workforce. Returning to school, Redmond earned an MBA from Georgia State University in June of 2000. Rob is currently employed as a manager of IT of a large technology company. Rob runs the struggling manager blog where he posts about his experience in both management and project management.

PMHut Team

PMHut Team

PMHut.com is a website dedicated to providing PM articles, detailed project management software reviews, and the latest news for the most popular web-based collaboration tools.

4 Responses

  1. Other than progress completion, I think it’s also important to note the current expenses status of the project against the budget.

  2. Avatar billene says:

    Does a status report list out new risks that arise out of the blue?

  3. Avatar Jeff Edwards says:

    This is a great posting on an important topic. I have always struggled to produce a concise status report.

    While conducting a research project, I found that most projects in my sample of large, successful IT projects reported project risks and schedule. A minority of the projects in the sample reported on budget and objectives.

    The status report template above would serve these projects well.

  4. Avatar BJ Marshall says:

    Thank you so much for this template. I have recently been asked to provide a quick status view for my CIO, and I immediately recalled this blog post.

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