Anticlue

Project Status Updates

Every so often, we need to have project status updates just to clearly identify who is doing, what and when, and how it is going. What is sometimes bewildering to me, is that although status updates are common place, they are perceived as an annoyance by the responsible parties.

So what is in a status update, at a high level, what is being worked on, what's next, and what was done. If you are on the end stage of a project or reviewing outstanding issues. A format that works for me is:

Issue Identification:
Summary:
Responsibility:
Current Status:
Next Step:
Accomplishments:
Decision:
Follow up:

It is a pretty easy format, and clearly describes responsibilities. Also it yields a useful summary of information of where the issue status.