Managing the “weekly” (highlight) report

“Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.”

The most common tool for communicating with the stakeholders (outside the team) is the report. The quotation made by Von Clausewitz can be applied to many occasions.

There are several reasons for this, they span from excessive expectancies about the ability to produce information within the quality standard, to the lack of agreement about what it is worth being read (or viewed, when presentations are included). This post is dedicated to frame reports within the stakeholders’ management (the “Communication Management Strategy Report” has been published just today under Prince2 templates)

Mapping the listeners in the project’s life

As discussed in the previous post, information is produced for being consumed. Often, during the project’s life stakeholders play both roles. There are four different phases, whatever is the chosen approach (the biggest difference in the timing to distribute the data).

Concept

The “potential” customer releases the data that will form the guidelines (project’s approach). Just few data (e.g. available budget, expected delivery date, scope, Risk governance, Communication strategy) are negotiated for giving the correct frame to the project. The “weekly” report starts its life near the end of this phase. Its structure has to be agreed – both in content, format and quality with the key stakeholders.

Definition

The core of this phase is the planning, when the approach is detailed into aplan and/or stories. Usually plans are modeled on the data coming from both the customer and users that are collected and digested by the BA (or the team) with the help of SME. The involvement of the final users should start from this phase; both for supplying the data needed for testing and approving the product features in their details.

Implementation

It begins when production starts and the “most” important information are coming from the team. The customer (including the senior management) is consuming the data in order to understand the actual condition of the product (what has been done). In this phase, the values coming from the results of the tests are essential (among other metrics – e.g. EVM) for confirming the mutual trust between who pay and who produce.

Handover and closeout

In this phase there are two main topics:

1. Inside the team, the “Learned Lessons”
2. Outside, the process for delivering what has been produced both to the implementation team and final users is still of paramount importance for the product success.

The importance of timing in reporting

It is true that the project is lost one day a time. However, the week is considered the minimum acceptable span for delivering valuable information to the key stakeholders.

The focus now is on the structure to be given to the “weekly” report (it corresponds to the “Highlight Report” of the Prince2 previous version – in the new version this kind of report is not present).

There is a very good post from J. Astrello about it. In essence, the document should have these key elements:

1. The usability should be focused on web, keeping the possibility of printing on a single page.
2. Split into four “quadrants” for improving its readability.
   1. Who is accountable (RACI) on the project with essential contact details (including holidays).
   2. Products completed within the current stage.
   3. Upcoming activities. Showing the trend (EVM style diagram)
   4. Risk and issues.

There a lot of issues about the production of this template. Some are addressed in the “Communication management strategy report” others will be developed in the next posts.