What should a weekly project report show?

What to include

• Cost: budget, committed, spent and forecast final cost.
• Time: planned finish, forecast finish and the reason for any gap.
• Changes: new, priced, approved and unpaid.
• Risks: the top five, with an owner for each.
• Decisions: what the reader must decide this week.

Checklist before you send it

• The first line says if the job is on track.
• Every figure is shown beside last week's figure.
• The figures come from the register and the cost forecast.
• Each risk has a named owner.
• Each decision has a name and a due date.
• It fits on one or two pages.

A reader who stops after the first line should still know where the job stands. A number alone says little. A change in the number shows the direction.

Put bad news in the first line too. A slip hidden for two weeks costs the report its readers' trust once it comes out.

Send the report on the same day each week, in the same layout, so readers know where to look. If the records are current, the report takes minutes to build.

A worked example

Say a design practice is running the design of a school building. The report opens with one line: the services drawings are a week behind, and the fee is on budget.

The cost table shows fee spent against fee earned, beside last week. The changes line lists two client requests, one priced and one not. The decisions line asks the client to choose a roof finish by Friday, because the roof drawings cannot be issued without it.

The client reads the first line and the decisions line. That is enough to act on. The next report shows the roof finish as decided, and the services drawings one day closer to plan.

Related answers

• How do I see project changes before they become costs?
• How do I keep the final cost close to the contract price?
• How do I know what my contractor has been told to change?
• What should a weekly change report show a project owner?