5 Steps To Faster Project Status Updates
Project status updates take a lot of time to gather and prepare. How much time would you save if you could get your status updates faster? You can streamline your project reporting with these 5 Steps To Faster Project Status Updates. Using these tips will help you get status reports from your team much more quickly.
Step 1: Set a schedule
Make it easy for your project team members to remember when they have to provide you with a status update by sticking to a schedule. Do you need an update every Friday afternoon? Every other Wednesday morning? It doesn’t matter when you set the schedule for, as long as it is regular. This will allow team members to get into a routine. They can prepare their status update in advance as they will know when it will be required.
Step 2: Use real-time information
It takes team members longer to prepare their status update if they don’t have access to real-time information. So make sure that they can use real-time data to pull together their update!
Using software like ProjectManager.com which can capture real-time task information means that they will have access to everything they need at their fingertips. They can pull together their updates faster and so you will also get them more quickly.
Step 3: Provide templates
If you want team members to update you on certain information or in a certain format, make it easy for them to do so by giving them a template to use. Each week they can simply delete the last update from your template and update it with the latest progress.
You’ll always get the data that you want and they won’t have to think too hard about what to send you! It will also save you chasing up when they forget to include something really important, as they will have those prompts there in the template to help them remember what you need.
Step 4: Issue reminders
Use the task management and email reminder features of your project management software to prompt your team members to complete their status updates on time. You can set up a recurring task to appear in their To Do list so they will never have the excuse that they forgot!
If you can automate emailing out reminders, do that too. This works well with team members who travel a lot and might need an email reminder. The more you can automate, the easier it is for you, and the more chance you’ll have that your project team members will get their status updates back to you promptly.
Step 5: Chase, chase, chase
OK, so this isn’t the best way to get status updates quickly, but it can work if you need to get a particular team member into a routine! Chase up reports if you don’t get them within the timescales you have asked for. Then chase again. And again! Making a nuisance of yourself won’t win you any prizes for being the most laid-back project manager but you will get what you want eventually and next time hopefully the team member concerned will stop and think twice before letting the deadline pass before sending you their status update.
