How do you evaluate and report on projects like a pro? (2024)

Align your indicators to existing ones; ideally deriving from the National plan ( don’t create yours that won’t contribute to higher level ones)Simplify the data collection and include it in routine task of the team. Often bet monitoring system a the easier to implement and often very complex ones stays on paper !!Have a Data visualization tool such Power BI to make them accessible and understandable by stakeholder’s

As a PM, I’d:1. Define clear project objectives and success criteria.2. Regularly track project progress against milestones and deliverables.3. Analyze project data to identify any risks and have mitigations in place.4. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure project performance.5. Prepare concise and informative reports highlighting project status, achievements, challenges, and recommendations.6. Communicate effectively with stakeholders, providing them with accurate and timely updates, and ask for support as needed.7. Continuously refine reporting processes to ensure transparency and accountability.

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Having clarity on the purpose of the project is of prime importance. Report has to be concise that summarizes the evaluation criteria, data collection and analysis. It should clearly highlight the achievements and challenges. Monitoring of performance and scope for recommendations for improvement and future actions. Also mitigation of risks remains a important aspect. Having considered the safety aspects of the project.Adhering to timelines, multitasking various activities parallelly. Keeping a strict control of the overall budget and constantly improving on the efficiency of work.Empowering the team to take decisions on the spot to avoid accidents, limit safety risks. STOP work in case of safety issues.

Data Analysis is one of the key skills to embark on a successful journey to Project Management. Data varies from project to project and country to country or culture to culture. It is essential to gather data and make sure to add feelings to your data or in other words craft a story around your data. In this data-driven story, address all the concerns, hopes, expectations, and fears of stakeholders. Survey, Interviews, DPR, Field reports, Risk Ass', QC & QA, EIA, etc., can help gather information for data analysis. Build charts, graphs, and dashboard in software you like or are comfortable using from Excel to Tableau or Primavera. Make models of your own or the one I built ALI (Advanced Learning Interface) Model that utilizes AI.

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To report on project cost benefit, gather data from financial records and project expenses. Also, on project expected benefits and revenue generation, utilizing surveys and market research for estimation. Constantly evaluate the net present value and the eatimated ROI to determine if benefit is greater than costs and report on the project's commercial viability.Additionally, continuously collect data on project tasks, estimated effort, and completion status. This can be sourced from PM software, team updates, or daily stand-ups to create burndown charts showing the remaining work against time and progress over time. It is very important to involve relevant project stakeholders in data collection and analysis for a holistic perspective

To take informed decision and bring transparency and also to keep informed your external as well as internal stakeholders, proper and correct data collection and analysis is very important. This can be achieved by gathering data on near real time basis or on regular intervals regarding tasks progress, identified risks and issues etc. and then summarizing them in a meaningful way that it can be utilized by all stakeholders to review the progress and take informed decision to keep project on track and within budget without compromising the quality.

Data will provide a picture of the achievements and challenges, but for better understanding on the quality of achievements and reasoning/issues, you need to go deeper. Sometimes, the supervisiors are reluctant to report issues to the management, that's where the management should act proactively based on the data they receive, similarly for the achievements there is not always a win-win situation. management,

this is key imo for reporting. keep it transparent for top-management. describe the challenges. describe where you need support and provide proposals how that support should look like in order to master the challenges.

this is looking in the glas ball. be sure to keep your stakeholders. it is important that they trust in the project and in you as project lead.

Measuring the success of a project largely depends on its desired outcomes. Since different projects have varying goals, their criteria for success will also differ.At various points during the project, you want to evaluate five points: schedule, quality, cost, stakeholder satisfaction and performance against the business case.Ultimately, the best way to measure project performance is to establish your goals ahead of time, set up measurements based on your project goals and monitor your performance throughout so you have time to adjust priorities and actions.

documentation is mandatory. also to keep yourself safe. however not too many folks will read your documentation because of hard in time. anyway you have to do it!

When creating reports, you need to know your audience. If you are unsure, go back to the brief and see what the purpose of the project was. It should contain key metrics on what is most important to track and communicate.Reports should be catered for the audience - including the length of detail. Appendices are your best friend for added detail!Ensure to have the report set out clearly and include action items and "so what" statements throughout.I also like to add a final slide of all the recommendations/actions at the very back with page reference to help my audience in decision making.

Compiling all the pitfalls and success in one place helps a lot.An important step before concluding any project.A standard template coupled with an excellent repository of information builds a culture of continuous learning .

this is a constant task. not only to be done after project´s finish. the more soon you react if something is going wrong the better it is.

Project Reporting: Often I see we have made this way overly complex. Lots of red lights for on track 'fill in the blank' etc.... reporting at the task / action levels. And, who reads all that? I've found that the key stakeholders and sponsors want to know: 1) Is the GOAL of the project on track? 2) what help do you need? That's it! Now.. the PM will do a number of things recommended here in this article... but, to show it out to the masses as a report.... I've found stakeholders find it too much. Keep the reporting SIMPLE and ONE page (or ONE dashboard). Your team will Thank You later! Cheers!

Here are key steps:Set clear KPIs.Establish a robust monitoring system.Hold regular progress reviews.Manage risks and issues proactively.Communicate transparently with stakeholders.Create impactful reports with insights and recommendations.Foster continuous improvement through post-project reviews. These practices, based on extensive experience, ensure projects stay on track and achieve desired outcomes in the dynamic field of project management.

When it comes to reporting... Know our audience/ audiences and their requirements from the evaluation.The evaluation is rarely simply about the project. Neither the project or evaluation happen in a vacuum, therefore the evaluation will be a tool to inform more decisions that could lead to more projects/ changes of policy/ research/ training, etc...With this in mind it's essential to know our audience/ audiences when preparing the report / reports. The project is done, what matters now is 'what are we going to about what we've learnt?'For maximum impact we can tailor our answer to this question to specific audiences, taking account of their requirements, hopes, fears, knowledge, risk appetite ...