What is performance reporting? It’s an important activity in project communication management. It involves collecting and disseminating project information, communicating project progress, utilization of resources, and forecasting future progress and status to various stakeholders, as decided in the communication management plan.
During the process of performance reporting, the work results of other processes are also analyzed and combined into performance reports. They are typically done in tabular or graphical formats that may be text-based, visual-based (such as charts, graphs, or tables), or most often a combination of both.
Overall, the elaborate reports may include:
- Analysis of past performance.
- Summary of changes approved in the reporting period.
- Current status of risks and issues.
- Results of variance analysis.
- Work completed during the reporting period.
- Work to be completed during the next reporting period.
- Forecasted project completion.
- Other relevant information to be reviewed and asked by stakeholders.
Read more: Common Project Risks and How to Tackle Them?
Performance Report Types
Fundamentally, performance reports are comparisons of project performance to the project performance baseline, and can include:
Status Reports
This gives the current state of a project at any given time. This kind of report describes where the project stands at that moment with regard to the performance measurement baseline. Using this, managers can also get the current snapshot of the project with respect to the scope, time, cost, and quality parameters.
Progress Report
This type of report describes what has been accomplished since the last time/last report.
Forecasting Report
This report states what is expected to happen on a project, predicting future performance and expected status of the project in various parameters. This helps in tracking and allocation of resources for better utilization.
Trend Report
This report shows a comparison between the current performance of the project and the last performance of the project during the same time duration. For example, performance could be compared monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. This type of report examines project performance over time to see if it is improving or degrading.
Variance Report
This report shows a comparison between the planned progress and actual progress made.
Earned Value report
This report integrates project performance on scope, schedule, and cost measures using earned value management techniques. The components of this report are often merged into status reports.
What Goes into Performance Reporting?
Project Management Plan
The Project Management Plan provides information on project baselines. The project deviations, which are reported in performance reports, are compared against the project performance baseline. The performance measurement baseline typically integrates the scope, schedule, and cost parameters of the project, but may also include technical and quality parameters.
Work Performance Information (WPI)
This is the information that is obtained from project activities, which is then collected on performance results such as –
- Deliverables status
- Schedule progress
- Cost incurred
Work Performance Measurement
Work Performance Information is used to generate project activity metrics to evaluate actual progress compared to planned progress in Project Management. These metrics include –
- Planned versus actual schedule performance
- Planned versus actual cost performance
- Planned versus actual technical performance
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Budget Performance Reports
Budget Forecasts provide information about the funds that are required to complete the remaining project work, as well as total fund estimates for the completion of project work.
Organizational Process Assets
The Organizational Process Assets that are used during the reporting of project performance includes, but is not limited to –
- Report Templates
- Policies and procedures that define the measurement indicators to be used
- Organizationally defined variance limits.
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