- Collecting information related to work performance, analyzing it, creating reports and sending them to respective stakeholders is involved in the reporting the performance of the project. the performance report is a part of the communications management plan.
- The reports should provide all the information needed by stakeholders to the level of detail required by them. The needs of the projects should be considered while designing the reports. The most appropriate method is to be used to send the reports. A project manager must not spend all the time only doing reporting activities. The project management plan can be used to identify the performance measurement baseline. This baseline can be used in the reports to measure the performance of the project. All reports must give a clear, concise, and true picture of the information that is being depicted. Reports should not just include schedule, but also include cost, scope, and quality performance as well. The appropriate moment of recommending and implementing corrective actions is non by looking at the reports.
The different types of performance reports include:
Status Report:
Reports the current performance of the process against performance measurement baseline
Progress Report:
Describes the total work accomplished
Trend Report:
Whether performance has an upward trend or a downward trend is reported by the trend report
Forecasting Report:Future project status and performance is reported basis current (or historical) data
Variance Report:
Compares actuals to baselines
Earned Value Report:
This report integrates scope, cost, and schedule measures to assess project performance
Lessons Learned Documentation:
Performance reports are used as lessons learned for future projects
This concludes the Communication Management concept. A project manager should spend time in the early stages of the project to identify ALL stakeholders and take a structured approach to communications by creating a communications management plan.
What Goes into Performance Reporting?
Project Management PlanThe Project Management Plan provides information on project baselines. The project deviations, which are reported in performance reports, are compared against the project performance baseline. The performance measurement baseline typically integrates the scope, schedule, and cost parameters of the project, but may also include technical and quality parameters.
Work Performance Information (WPI)This is the information that is obtained from project activities, which is then collected on performance results such as –
- Deliverables status
- Schedule progress
- Cost incurred
Work Performance Information is used to generate project activity metrics to evaluate actual progress compared to planned progress in Project Management. These metrics include –
- Planned versus actual schedule performance
- Planned versus actual cost performance
- Planned versus actual technical performance
Budget Forecasts provide information about the funds that are required to complete the remaining project work, as well as total fund estimates for the completion of project work.
The Organizational Process Assets that are used during the reporting of project performance includes, but is not limited to –
- Report Templates
- Policies and procedures that define the measurement indicators to be used
- Organizationally defined variance limits