Stay on top of your project’s performance with a project reporting template. Keep everyone on the same page about what’s been completed and where your project is headed.
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“What’s the status of this project?”
If you’re a project manager, you’ve probably heard this question before. To answer it, you likely had to dig through reporting dashboards, scan your inbox, and check with your team. But imagine if there was a simpler way—a single source of truth where you could quickly see what’s been completed, what’s next, and how far you have to go to reach your project goals.
Enter: The project reporting template.
A project reporting template is a reusable guide that lets you quickly create a project report—like a weekly status report or monthly progress report. It’s a framework you can use at the start of every new project, so you always know what type of information you should be tracking. All you have to do is copy the template, fill in the required information, and start working.
Project reporting is important for more than just updating stakeholders. It’s also how you keep work on track, address blockers, and ensure that work is completed on time. Your project reporting template provides an at-a-glance view of what needs to be done next and how you’re progressing toward your project goals.
No project is set in stone. Priorities and timelines often evolve over time—and as your team completes deliverables, you get closer and closer to accomplishing your project goal. A digital project reporting template can capture change over time in a way that static templates can’t. It updates in real time, so you always know what’s been completed and what’s next. And if priorities change, you can easily update your template to keep stakeholders in the loop.
With a digital project reporting template, you can:
At its most basic, your project reporting template should include the following information:
To format your template, create a section for each of these buckets:
In this section, you need space to document your project objectives, the KPIs you’ll use to measure them, and your current progress toward those goals.
To track this information, create the following columns:
Tracking goals in a digital project reporting template works well for individual teams, but you can level up your goal-tracking process with Asana’s Goals feature. Instead of just working on the team level, Goals is an organization-wide tool that can help your entire company set, track, and communicate about goals.
Seeing tasks that are “on deck” can help you proactively remove blockers that may impact upcoming work. Plus, having an overview of the tasks you’re prioritizing helps paint a picture of how your project is progressing over time. This section can look different depending on the specific needs of your project. For example, if you’re creating a weekly status report template, this section could include tasks on your team’s to-do list for this week.
This section helps you see what you’ve accomplished so far. It illustrates the concrete progress you’ve made toward achieving each deliverable, plus helps you queue up tasks that are next in line. You can also tailor this section to your project’s specific needs—for example, tasks that were completed last week, or a list of all completed milestones for your entire project.
Finally, create a section to document any blockers or bottlenecks that could impact upcoming work. This helps you proactively resolve issues before they become a larger problem. Or, it can help stakeholders understand why certain deliverables are taking longer than expected.
Try out these features and app integrations to get the most out of your project reporting template:
Creating a project reporting template can help save time whenever you start a new initiative. Instead of setting up a brand new reporting structure, you can just copy the template and fill it in. Using a reporting template also ensures that you (and your team) are going through all the steps you need to keep your project plan and project timeline on track—plus communicate progress updates to stakeholders.
Your project reporting template is a single source of truth for your entire project team to see overall project progress, the current status of work, and upcoming action items. Share it with all key stakeholders including your primary team, project sponsor, and anyone else who needs to stay informed about project updates.
We’ve laid out how to make a simple project reporting template above. However, there are different types of status report templates you can make—like project budget status reports, project health reports, and weekly project status reports. The basic structure is the same regardless of the type of reporting you want to do. That means you can start with the basic structure we’ve outlined, then tailor it as needed.