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The Commerce of Content
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Project Management | People Management | Business Management | Information Design Models, Processes, and Techniques | Home |
As you develop the communication product, your client and the team of people working with you will be interested in the progress of your work. To inform them, regularly publish a progress report. The progress report offers many benfits. It anticipates your client’s need for information about an in-progress project, makes the team aware of changes to the original plans and situations that could cause problems before those situations become problems, and maintains the common vision for the project that you painstakingly created when you developed plans of the information design.
Most likely, you will publish the the report weekly or bi-weekly. Let your client determine the exact frequency; when your client approves your information designs, ask how frequently the client would prefer a progress report.
The progress report has primary and secondary audiences.
One page¾ if you want people to read the report. Make sure that you use charts and headings so recipients can easily scan the report to find just the information they need.
Include the following information
| Section | Information to Share |
| Milestones | If a milestone was scheduled during the time period covered
by the report, mention whether or not you made it. If you made it, mention whether you
made it on or ahead of schedule. If you did not make the milestone, mention why you did
not and when you expect to make it. Then, state the next scheduled milestone and your assessment of whether or not you can make it. In addition to this information, some clients would like to see a complete schedule with a status report. If your client requests this information, provide the complete schedule as an attachment and make reference to it in the report. |
| Budget | Indicate whether you are meeting, exceeding or underspending
the budget. Indicate the percentage of the total budget that has actually been spent and
indicate whether you that is the percentage you anticipated spending by this point in the
project. In addition to this information, some clients would like to see a complete budget with a status report. If your client requests this information, provide the complete budget as an attachment and make reference to it in the report. |
| Changes to the Information Plan | (If any) Indicate changes to the original plans. Prepare a
chart that:
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| Quality | Mention how well you are meeting the following guidelines¾ editorial, production, and usability¾
and how you reached this assessment. For example, mention facts like someone edited the communication product since the last period and what types of errors the editor found, and that the, in a usability test completed during the period, users were able to perform most of the tasks within the intended time periods and indicated that they were satisfied with the communication product. |
| Technical Issues: | Provide a chart indicating outstanding issues and questions.
For each issue, indicate the following (each is a separate column in the chart):
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| Project Issues | Issues with the project itself, such as a team member going on vacation or the need for a special production method. Handle project issues in the same manner as you handle technical issues; prepare a chart with the same headings as for technical problems. |
Following is an example of a project report:
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Project Management | People Management | Business Management | Information Design Models, Processes, and Techniques | Home
(c) Copyright. 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.
