PROJ6003 Project Execution and Control

 Introduction

An efficient and well-programmed ticketing system is the cue to proper functioning of the public transportation in Victoria. It privileges the users to adeptly access and use public transportation. The system also provides effective information of the key for the transportation department to help in directing and uplifting the public transportation (ProjectManager, 2021). The myki project was developed to alter the traditional metcard system, as its contract too was due to expire in the year 2007. A $1 billion budget had been sanctioned to develop the system and work on it for a decade. This developed system had been considered as the efficient value solution to provide many benefits to the people of Victoria incorporating more reliable, efficient and attractive technique for the commuters. In the paper, the need for project status report will be understood and a sample of project status report will be attempted to be provided to a chosen stakeholder of the project.

Status reports

A project status report in a project is defined as a document, which describes the project progress in a specified time and compares it with the plan of the project. The project managers to keep the project stakeholders informed of the costs, risk, progress and time of the project use this report. These reports allow the managers and the stakeholders to visualize the data using graphs and charts. The reports are considered repeatedly through every phase of the execution of the project as a system to maintain the schedule and keep everything transparent.

There are various status reports and among them, the chosen three reports are schedule reports, risk reports and performance reports. The team aligned with the project logs their work hours in the schedule sheets to present to the managers and tracks progress on the project by analyzing the task hours. This report is presented through emails and will present the stakeholders a snapshot of the manner how a project is advanced towards the target. A risk report presents the issues, which hinders a successful completion of project and allows analysis for the stakeholder (Kissflow, 2021).

The risk report not only presents the potential threats but also presents necessary steps to eradicate the threats. The risk reports allows the project managers and the team to be ready with solution, which can be implemented if such risks are seen in future projects (Hu & Panthi, 2020). A performance report is another important activity in the project and incorporates communicating the progress of the project along with resource utilization and presenting project future to the necessary stakeholders of the project. The progress report compares the project development with the project baseline performance including time, cost and quality measures.

It is known that effective communication is the bridge between the various stakeholders who have various organizational and cultural backgrounds along with different interest and levels of expertise (Thai, 2021). Thus, if there are any discrepancies in the techniques through which the information is passed, it will lead to ineffective project development. The biggest challenge with the project status reports is to improve the efficiency of communication by creating an understandable status report. Various stakeholders ignore the status reports, as they are too long or not structured in a proper manner or contain irrelevant information, which does not withhold the attention of the stakeholders (Ford, 2021). Thus, it is necessary that status reports be given proper attention such that the necessary information is conveyed to the key stakeholders to drive the success rate of the project. An efficient status report would be one where not only the status of the project report is presented but also inform the necessities to the project stakeholder for resolving any issues or risks that may impact the success of the project.

Status reports are prepared for various categories of the stakeholders and not all the stakeholders are required to be informed of everything. Like there are different status reports from project team, steering committee and the project sponsor (Taniguchi & Onosato, 2018).

During the communication phase these stakeholders must be analyzed and determined of what report needs to be sent to whom. The few differences amongst the status reports for different members are like – the status reports prepared for the steering company or project sponsor have a different level of detailing than the reports presented to the project team (Sinnaps, 2021). The project team will not have the knowledge of budget distribution or sanction which the project sponsor might have. The reports sent to the sponsor do not include the daily updates by the project team. They are instead informed after completion of a milestone activity in the project (Darby, 2021). The status reports presented to the client do not discuss the risks of the project or any internal changes made in the project.

To understand the necessity of preparing an effective status report, a sample will be presented in the paper aligned with the myki case study.

Reporting Person		Project sponsor			Project Title
Date of report		29.09.2021			Project manager
Report author		Project Manager			Project sponsor
Executive Summary			This status report discusses the scope of the project mentioning the key milestones present and their status of development.
Project ID	Project Milestones		Status	Baseline Completion date
01	Stakeholder meeting		Completed	27.09.2021
02	Analyzing the myki project		On progress	29.09.2021
03	Finding the risks involved in the project		Not yet started	05.10.2021
04	Mapping efficient solutions to each risk		Not yet started	20.10.2021

 Conclusion

Thus, it can be understood that project status reports have a great importance in any project. Reporting in a project provides a high-level overview, which presents the critical data of the project in an easy and understandable format. This measure is considered essential for the success of project. Without the proper reports, the stakeholders will stay in dark and will raise the chances for the project to fail, as right insights will not be presented which will lead to inappropriate project decisions. The three effective status reports chosen in this paper are risk reports, performance reports and schedule reports. Along with their features, challenges and pitfalls have also been discussed. The differences of the status reports for different stakeholders are studied in the paper. Finally, project status sample report for the myki case study has been presented in the paper and all the deliverables of the paper are efficiently discussed.

References

Darby. (2021). Top Project Reporting Challenges - Darby Consulting. Darby Consulting. Retrieved 29 September 2021, from https://darbyconsulting.com/top-project-reporting-challenges/.

Ford. (2021). PMTips Resources. PM Tips. Retrieved 29 September 2021, from https://pmtips.net/resources/project-status-reporting.

Hu, W., & Panthi, K. (2020). Project status reporting system (PSRS) for pipeline relocation programs. Built Environment Project and Asset Management.

Kissflow. (2021). 6 Essential Project Management Reports for Project Managers. Kissflow. Retrieved 29 September 2021, from https://kissflow.com/project/project-management-report/.

ProjectManager. (2021). Status Report. ProjectManager.com. Retrieved 29 September 2021, from https://www.projectmanager.com/status-report#:~:text=A%20project%20status%20report%20is,%2C%20risks%2C%20time%20and%20work.&text=The%20summary%20of%20the%20project%20budget%20and%20schedule.

Sinnaps. (2021). Types of Project Reports | Sinnaps - Project Management Tool. Online Project Management. Retrieved 29 September 2021, from https://www.sinnaps.com/en/project-management-blog/types-of-project-reports-for-disseminating-your-project-information-to-stakeholders#:~:text=The%20different%20types%20of%20project%20status%20reports%20are%20daily%2C%20weekly,key%20information%20on%20the%20project.

Taniguchi, A., & Onosato, M. (2018). Effect of continuous improvement on the reporting quality of project management information system for project management success. International Journal of Information Technology and Computer Science (IJITCS), 10(1), 1-15.

Thai. (2021). 8 Easy Steps to Write a Project Status Report (with Template and Examples) • Asana. Asana. Retrieved 29 September 2021.

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