{"id":76,"date":"2017-02-01T11:53:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T11:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i3works.bluetree.uk\/news\/?p=76"},"modified":"2019-12-08T21:39:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T21:39:33","slug":"the-importance-of-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/2017\/02\/the-importance-of-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many people lose sight of the \nimportance of reporting, seeing it as dull and pointless, this blog will\n hopefully restore your faith in this crucial pillar of project \nmanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author: Rob Orford is a Junior consultant at i3Works, specialising in planning and scheduling.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Time and time again we\u2019ll hear people complaining about having \u201cyet \nanother report to fill in\u201d, and while reporting can seem dull and time \nconsuming, we must always remember that reporting is an essential part \nof any organisation or project. Without it we cannot check whether good \nprogress is being made, make the necessary arrangements to ensure we hit\n our targets, keeping progress within tolerances and senior leadership \nhappy. In other words, it\u2019s a vital ingredient in your recipe for \nsuccess!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are three of the main reasons I think we should keep positive about reporting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Facilitates communications<\/strong> \u2013 Let\u2019s face it,  without good comms your project is destined for failure or at the very  least mass confusion within the team. Project status reports provide a  consistent and timely vehicle for fact based reporting about the project  that can be consumed in a meaningful manner by all stakeholders (core  team members, project sponsors, and other interested parties). In my  opinion communication is by far the most important of all aspects of  project management, you should never think twice about communicating  with those above, below and around your project. It supports a no  surprises culture and puts your team in the best position to produce  work of the highest and most appropriate quality.<\/li><li><strong>Establishes a rhythm <\/strong>\u2013 Yes, believe it or not  rhythm is just as important for your project as it is for your trombone  practice! A strong reporting drumbeat ensures that on a regular basis  the project team gets together to take a look at what has been  accomplished, how the team is performing, and what corrective actions  need to be implemented. Without this everything starts to feel very  reactive rather than proactive. It\u2019s one of the first things I establish  upon initiating or joining a project as it really does feed into a lot  of other great practices, one of which being the point above, as a good  rhythm gives a regular opportunity for communication.<\/li><li><strong>Gives context<\/strong> \u2013 Getting trapped in your own bubble  of work is a very dangerous situation to find yourself in and it\u2019s all  too easy to let this happen if you\u2019re not aware of the big picture.  Reporting gives visibility to those within and around the project of  what\u2019s going on and what they should be aware of. This could include  information which means you need to re-evaluate how you\u2019re approaching  your current tasking or even stop altogether! It highlights where the  team needs to focus to correct problems or maintain the progress  required to meet or exceed customer expectations. I once arrived at an  organisation where the project manager was so wrapped up in the work he  was doing that he didn\u2019t actually let anyone near it, quite often  leading to him missing deadlines and producing poor quality work. He  didn\u2019t look around him at the current context or see where others may be  in an excellent position to improve his project work.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>While all this is very good to keep in mind, I\u2019d like to add a few caveats, as some people can go a bit loopy with reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Format<\/strong>: Always keep in mind who you are actually \nreporting to. What do they need to know? This will range wildly from the\n interests of a project team member and the CEO. How much time do they \nhave to read the report? Keep in mind that some managers may have to \ntrawl through tens of reports while others may only be focused on one or\n two, which leads me to my next point. Is the information easy to \ndigest? If the report is just a word dump people will probably only read\n the first few lines before casting it aside, try highlighting \nparticular areas that will be of interest to those reading this specific\n report and then using traffic lights to indicate how each of these \nareas are doing. If they need more detail, they\u2019ll ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Timing<\/strong>: Timing is crucial, and by this I don\u2019t mean \ntiming the submission of your report to allow yourself a quick exit from\n the building. You should think about the appropriate frequency of each \nreport (which slots nicely into your project rhythm which we covered \nabove). It should be timely enough to be proactive, without becoming \nburdensome to the intended recipient. No one wants to be drowning in \nreports!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people lose sight of the importance of reporting, seeing it as dull and pointless, this blog will hopefully restore your faith in this crucial pillar of project management. Author: Rob Orford is a Junior consultant at i3Works, specialising in planning and scheduling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}