Data Analysis and Project Reporting

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(gentle music) Welcome to data analysis and project reporting. Providing reports is one of the most common ways a project manager will communicate with their team and outside stakeholders. In these lessons, we'll cover the types of reports you are most likely to make along with methods of analyzing the data you'll use in your reports. The most common formal document you'll likely issue regularly throughout the project life cycle is the project status report sometimes referred to as a performance report. The process of creating this document for distribution includes the collection and distribution of performance information and usually includes status updates, progress measurements, and forecast information. This process will also include the periodic collecting and analyzing of baseline data so it can be compared to actual data and enable you to communicate the project status, performance, and projections of results. When designing your communications management plan and determining the frequency for distribution, this status report will be included and the frequency will need to be set to an appropriate level for each audience who receive it. While you may generate this report every two weeks for your project team, it's likely your stakeholders will require a less frequent update such as monthly. The format of this report can be as formal or informal as you like, but it should be appropriate for your audience. For example, you might vary the formatting such that every two weeks your project team receives an informal email with the overall project status update, but monthly, you'll generate a formal document status for the client and stakeholders in addition to the project team. The simple email report would include percentage completed, status dashboards for each area and so on. While the more formal reports will include sections such as past performance analysis, completed efforts since last update, current risk and issue status, on-deck work, changes approved since last update, and other relevant status information. You may be asking yourself, how you'll manage all this information. In most organizations, some type of data management and reporting system is implemented. If this isn't the case, you can instead request a tool such as Microsoft Project or otherwise that can give the project manager the capability to capture, store, and distribute information to stakeholders about project cost, schedule progress, and performance. These tools often combine reports from other systems and can even facilitate the distribution of the reports to your stakeholders. The information can be presented in multiple ways including visually in tables, charts, or numbers. The key point to remember here is the report should be formatted to meet the appropriate needs of your stakeholders.