How a Status Report Keeps Your Project on Track

When it comes to business projects, managers face a bewildering number of moving parts. In addition to tracking every project detail, leaders must always be ready to present a clear picture to stakeholders—deadlines, metrics, and milestones— in the form of a status report.

Status reports summarize the key facts of an ongoing project so everyone understands the project’s current status and what needs to be done next. It’s an essential output that ensures a project stays on track.

In this guide, you’ll learn about what a status report is, how it can save your project team time and effort, and how Slack can make creating them easier.

What is a status report?

A status report is a brief document that summarizes a project’s current state. It usually includes an overview of the project’s health, a list of ongoing tasks and upcoming steps, and a discussion of any risks impacting the project. Status reports are usually delivered on a regular schedule, such as weekly or monthly.

Status reports are important because they ensure teams are aligned. They reduce miscommunication and meetings while helping leaders make faster, smarter decisions.

Why status reports matter for modern teams

Workplace teams today can be geographically dispersed across time zones or even continents. Traditional methods of team collaboration, such as meetings or real-time calls, can be more challenging to arrange. When you have one status report to refer to, however, it’s easier for everyone to get up to speed. An easily shared, unified status report is an important part of transparent project tracking.

Status reports are also helpful for team agility. Reports identify risks early so issues can be addressed proactively and teams can be ready to pivot.

Types of status reports and when to use them

The type of project you’re working on will dictate how often you need status reports. This frequency can help determine what type of status report you need. Here are the main types of status reports:

Daily status reports

Most project teams don’t need a status report daily. However, some Agile teams or particularly fast-moving project teams do require them. Due to time constraints, daily status reports can’t be in-depth. Instead, the project lead might update the previous day’s report with any changes or provide a bulleted list of recent developments. An automated workflow in Slack or a project management app can surface often relevant information in place of a manually generated daily status report.

Weekly status reports

Weekly status reports offer regular updates while allowing project managers time to prepare a more comprehensive report. They typically summarize recent progress, current risks to watch for, and steps planned for the following week. Weekly reports are particularly helpful for sprint check-ins or providing team leads with insights into their teams’ progress.

Monthly or quarterly status reports

Status reports produced over longer periods, such as monthly or quarterly, generally provide a high-level overview of a project for decision-makers. Directors and executives use them to assess whether the project is on track and whether any major adjustments are necessary. Monthly and quarterly status reports usually omit lists of specific tasks and instead focus on aspects like performance metrics, timelines, and resource usage.

Key components of an effective status report

Of course, every status report will vary depending on the project’s needs and the report’s audience. To help get you started, here are some of the categories that almost all status reports include.

Project basics

Some basic information about the project, such as the project name, due date, and project manager, should be included at the top of each report. This offers a helpful reference and minimizes confusion.

Project summary and status

The next section of your status report should provide a general overview of the project’s current state. It can include the project’s stage or a one-word description of its health, along with a brief paragraph summarizing where the project stands.

Risks and blockers

The status report also offers the project manager a chance to highlight any issues that are currently impacting or could potentially impact the project. Blockers are issues that hinder the project’s progress, while risks are issues that could occur in the future. The project’s status report should identify both and suggest ways to address them.

Task or decision lists

The status report can then include details of what is currently being done and what needs to be done next. Many status reports include a chart that lists ongoing tasks, their owners, deadlines, and next steps. Some will do the same for decisions that need to be made.

Schedule and milestones

Many status reports include the overall project checklist or timeline as a reference, showing the current project stage. It may also summarize which milestones have been achieved and which are the next targets.

Overview of key project metrics

It can be helpful for decision-makers to see a high-level overview of the project schedule, budget, and scope. Some status reports also summarize metrics on the project team’s performance.

Status report vs. progress report: What’s the difference?

You’ll probably hear status report and progress report used interchangeably. However, there are subtle differences between the two.

A status report provides a snapshot of a project at the time it is written. While it may include past events, its focus is on current activities and upcoming plans. A progress report, by contrast, looks back at how the project has progressed from the start. It focuses more on past performance and metrics that measure the team’s successes so far.

While status reports are most useful for people directly involved in the project, progress reports are typically for decision-makers looking to optimize processes. This chart highlights the differences between status reports and progress reports:

How to write a clear and effective status report

Follow these steps to craft a clear and thorough status report:

1. Define your audience

First, consider who will read your status report. That influences how you write it. Decision-makers need high-level metrics about the project’s health, while reports for project team members should focus more on specific tasks.

2. Choose your cadence

Next, decide how often you think a status report will be necessary. If you’re working with an Agile team or on a highly time-sensitive project, you might need to release one daily. But if you’re working on a project with less frequent updates, you might be better off with a slower cadence. The cadence you choose can affect the content of your report. The longer you go between reports, the more details you’ll likely want to include.

3. Gather data from the right sources

At the project kickoff meeting, discuss how you’ll gather the data needed to inform your status report. Consider both the technologies you’ll use to track progress and the people you’ll contact if you need clarification. Whenever possible, it’s also helpful to automate data collection so you don’t waste time searching for information when writing a report.

4. Use a clear structure

When structuring and formatting your reports, try to present information in an order that reduces confusion. For example, starting your report with a summary establishes context for the rest of the report. Then, cover the project’s status, tasks in progress, risks or blockers, and next steps.

5. Edit for clarity and brevity

When preparing reports for busy colleagues, it’s important to be clear and concise. Avoid using jargon and edit each report to remove unnecessary words.

6. Share consistently

A status report is useless if no one knows when it will arrive or where to find it. Share your reports on a predictable schedule and an accessible platform.

Many teams traditionally rely on email for this, but documents can easily get lost in cluttered inboxes. Instead, consider using a more efficient platform like Slack, where you can pin status reports to channels so they’re always easy to find.

Best practices for managing status reports with Slack

Writing a status report can be time-consuming if you’re manually searching for data. Fortunately, modern project management tools and work operating systems mean you rarely need to.

Project management software provides a snapshot of every task, including the owner and deadline. When you integrate Slack with this software, you can update tasks and monitor the project’s status—all without leaving your team’s work operating system.

For even faster checks on a project’s status, you can use Slack reminders to prompt your team for updates or have them use emojis to react quickly. When it’s time to share a status report, the project’s dedicated Slack channel is a natural place, and the document can be pinned at the top of the channel until the next report is ready.

Status reporting tools and automation options

Slack and project management software can automate parts of creating status reports. For example, Slack’s built-in AI can speed up data gathering by summarizing channels and other resources, saving you from scrolling back through days’ worth of information.

You can then build multistep automated workflows in Slack to keep your team on track and quickly gather information from them. These workflows can send reminders, request information, or even funnel data to and from the other apps you use to write a status report.

This data sharing happens with the help of Slack integrations, which automate parts of project management while keeping everything in Slack. Some integrations helpful for crafting status reports include:

• Asana for updating or receiving notifications about tasks
• Jira for viewing automated previews of tickets
• Trello for editing project cards directly in Slack
• Monday.com for creating new tasks or projects during Slack conversations
• Standup.ly for managing standup meetings to inform daily status reports
• Zapier for sending information from Slack to third-party apps

Elevate project management with status reports in Slack

Projects can get complicated. Remembering to share all relevant information with stakeholders can make them even more so. However, with a status report, stakeholders receive that information in a simple, concise document.

Status reports eliminate ambiguity, reduce delays, and help the entire project team stay focused on the end goal. Find out more about how Slack can help you easily create and share asynchronous status reports.

Status report FAQs