Abstract: This blog post explains why effective internal and external project reporting is critical in SAP projects and provides recommendations for creating and monitoring reports to ensure project success.
“Internal project reporting” is the term we use to describe the reporting that takes place within the project team. For example, the reports that project part teams create and pass on to the project management or PMO. As “external project reporting” we include the reporting of the overall project, which the project management passes on to project stakeholders or to control bodies such as the steering committee.
External reporting: Does anyone have anything to hide?
It is especially important to be aware of the purpose of the reporting. External project reporting, for example, has to make a significant contribution to the positive image of the project. This means that everything that is reported and communicated from the project to external parties should be consistent. If a project always provides information about a status, problems, risks or the like only on demand, it very quickly leads to a strange feeling among all external parties involved in the project, because they believe that there is something to hide in the project.
Proactive external communication
It is much better and more confidence-building to report proactively from the project management or out of the project. This also includes reporting on problems and risks, and what you have done to get the risks under control (and not make them a problem). This also applies to official, external reporting, such as the report to the Steering Committee. In all clarity: Risks and problems should be discussed proactively. And no attempt should be made to belittle problems or risks or simply NOT to report them.
Reporting with a sense of proportion
And, of course, reporting must be carried out with a sense of proportion. It is important that the project is experienced as transparent in the organization – especially by all stakeholders of the project, so that no one has to feel that they are excluded from information or that they would only be informed upon request.
Internal Reporting: A Question of Orientation in the Team
The main purpose of internal project reporting should be to determine one’s own location again and again. Thus it is not so much a reporting of the current status of a partial team to the project management, but rather a location determination in the respective partial team. It is important that this includes all participants in order to have a uniform view of the current status of the work.
In my experience, this is simply done by asking the following questions depending on the reporting period, which is usually weekly or bi-weekly:
1) What should be achieved in this project reporting period; what results should be achieved? (Not so much: What should be done?)
And in that context, the answers directly fall into the following categories:
a) which of their results that I wanted to achieve in the reporting period did I achieve?
b) which of their results that I wanted to achieve in the reporting period have I NOT achieved?
In the case of the results not achieved (1.b)), the following questions have to be answered:
1.b)-1: What do I do to get this planning deviation under control again?
1.b)-2: Does this have an overall effect on the overall planning of my sub-project?
The next question is:
2: What results can I achieve in the following reporting period?
Systematization through resubmission
Once I have asked these questions in a reporting cycle, I can simply take from the last reporting period the results and those that were planned for the future period and divide them into the results that I achieved or did not achieve. This means that I am creating a very one-way resubmission system, through which I always have the questions before my eyes:
- What do I want to do next?
- What did I do with what I wanted to do?
- What did I not do about it?
- And what are the consequences of not doing something?
From my point of view, it has also proved very effective that the question is asked each time, especially to the external participants (usually the external consultants):
- How big is the remaining effort?
Keeping an eye on the budget at the same time
If this question is asked again in each reporting period, the overall budget would have to be reduced – depending on what has been achieved. If you reflect on what you have NOT achieved, you will quickly see whether the work is progressing as planned from a budget point of view. Or whether an ever-increasing budget reservoir is slowly building up (due to the work that has not been done). This is usually due to over-optimistic planning.
Risks and defensive measures are also part of the status report.
In addition, such status reports should also include a chapter proactively asking for new risks, and for appropriate measures that the team believes should be taken to avert these risks – mitigation actions. The new risks reported in this way can be transferred from the PMO to the risk log and evaluated and consolidated accordingly by the project management.
Productivity through attendance planning
Furthermore, when determining the activities for the future reporting period, it should be examined whether the attendance planning of all participants is suitable for carrying them out. If this is guaranteed, the team will be able to work together very productively and coordinate well. The success of this approach can be seen, for example, when any team member is asked about the status of the team and receives a statement that usually corresponds to that of the team as a whole. This is only possible because there is a regular comparison of this status.
It is also possible that such a comparison is not made in a team meeting, but is only created by corresponding subproject managers and coordinated with the team. This is certainly the more effective way.
So, a status report should consist of:
- What did I want to do in the reporting period?
- Which of these did I do?
- What have I not done?
- What do I want to do in the future reporting period?
Beyond that:
- What is the estimated remaining effort of my external consultants involved?
- What are new risks and mitigation actions?
And if necessary also:
- What are the requirements or integration points for other teams?
If this needs to be formalized, it can usually also be solved communicatively.
This reporting system has proven very successful for me in all projects. Especially because every team is regularly required to verify its own status and the status of its work and thus the progress and validity of its own planning, to critically question and, if necessary, to touch it.
(An example can be found here: YYYY-WW_Status_Template.pdf. You can purchase and download the internal status report via this link as MS Powerpoint template in Digistore24.)
Reporting of the overall project
From my point of view, the same applies to the overall project. This means that the project management should set an example by creating the same report in the same reporting rhythm – from the overall project perspective:
- What results were achieved?
- Which results were not achieved?
- And what results do we want to achieve in the next reporting period?
Part of this question can also be transferred to external reporting for the overall project. It may well have the same structure. This can be enriched by traffic light functions (or similar) with questions in this direction:
- Where are we qualitative?
- How do we travel in terms of time?
- And how are we cost effectively on the way?
These are the components of the magic triangle. Basically, they form the tension curve in every project: Time, costs and quality.
(You can find an example here: TEMPLATE_Status MM-YYYY.pdf. You can purchase and download the status report for the entire project via this link as MS Powerpoint template in Digistore24.)
And of course the budget consumption and the outlook should also be reported periodically.
This includes the following figures:
Planned: Planned project budget for the reporting period (usually year, project phase or overall project)
Actual-to-Date: Actual costs incurred (as invoice receipt and/or time recording)
Estimate-to-Complete: Residual estimate of future expenses in the period under review.
Total-to-Complete: Estimated Total Expenditure: Sum of Actual-to-Date and Estimate-to-Complete
Estimated Deviation: Estimated budget deviation: Total-to-Complete – Planned
Actual remaining Budget: Current remaining budget: Planned – Actual-to-Date
Here you will find an overview of our tools, which you can purchase and download at Digistore24 and use for your project.