Free Project Status Report Templates in MS Word

Here is a collection of Free Project Status Report templates to help you prepare your own Project Status Report for your management. You can also check out our collection of free Expense Report Templates available for immediate download.

A Project Status Report is just a formal report to communicate the status of a running project. There is no rocket science involved in creating a status report. When handling a project, your seniors, clients, and even team members will need the status of various parts of the project. For that purpose, a status report is prepared. This report is comprehensive yet so on the point that people involved in the project execution as well as the client can easily understand it. Organizations use project status reports to keep their clients up to date with the progress and although these reports usually matter when a project takes weeks and even months to complete, it’s not uncommon to prepare a status report about a project that only took hours or a couple of days to finish.

Uses and importance of Project Status Reports:

The use of a project status report is what the title suggests; a written timeline of all the steps and milestones of the project. On a macro level, this report will include the actual status of the project, where everything is at this point, and how much time it will take to complete the full project and the next milestone on a micro level, this report shows the hurdles, risks involved in the completion of the project, critical decision made for successful completion and alternatives are taken for a better outcome. Usually, when an important project is running, there are various departments involved, and a big team is working on the project. When multiple people are working on the same part of the project, there might be chances of occurring errors and mistakes. However, this status report eliminates any critical mistakes to happen. In case a mistake does happen, the status report will enlighten who is to blame for the error or mistake.

Because the project status report is presented to clients, company executives, and team members, the format is usually kept very simple and brief. There might be some jargon but that’s hard to replace when a project involves mechanical or engineering work. This report when presented to the clients, allows them to see their money is put in a good place. They can easily evaluate if they have invested with the right team and soon the result will satisfy their needs. Seeing that everything is on track, they will keep investing money and that’s what matters the most. On the other hand, when this status report is presented to company executives, they can eliminate the areas where resources are wasted and emphasize the parts of the project that need more resources to keep the timeline on track.

Free Project Status Report Templates

Here is the preview and download link for Project Status Report Templates.

 

Market Practices of Project Status Reports:

Project’s General Information:

Fortunately, one thing about project status reports is that once the first has been prepared, there are multiple things that would remain the same until the very close of the project. Thus, when preparing the first report, you should indicate the title of the project, the name of the client, the date when confirmation was given by the client on the project, the date when the project was started, and the name of the person who is in charge and his team members.

General Status Details:

The previous section is a key component of the project status report and will stay constant in all subsequent reports unless new team members are added to the project at a later date. In this section, you will assign a specific serial number for the project so that it can be tracked differently in the future. This section also describes the responsibilities and duties for every team member but is kept short and succinct. Another thing of interest to mention here is the date the report was made and by whom.

Project’s Milestone Evaluation:

This is what needs to be adjusted every time a new report is generated on a weekly basis or monthly bases. At the start of a project, the team divides it into smaller chunks called milestones. These are not everyday tasks, but are significant points the team has to reach to complete the project successfully, on time. The project status report focuses on important discussion regarding which milestones have already been achieved, what the team expects to achieve before the next status report and a snapshot of what it was before and what was to be done.

Problems and Risk Evaluation:

A component for measuring deviations between expectations and results attained did denote an established term that all is not well. This section should set out some of the problems facing the project managers in terms of people or resources. The author should also mention mitigation measures that can prevent delays until the next status report, including what risk factors will come into play if no changes are made.

Conclusion and Suggestions:

More times than not, an issue will be brought to the notice of project members for addressing with the successful completion of a task, and such issues are highlighted in a project status report which shows those that require immediate addressing. Such reports are usually drafted by someone who will probably be well trained in his line of work and therefore know what he is writing about meaning he will also be able to give suggestions on how to overcome delays and keep the same from happening again in the future. Lastly, this is the conclusion of the project status whether everything is on track or it is going to take some time for the project to be completed.