How to give a status report
If you’re anything like me, you work in a corporation or organization, and you work for someone else. Usually, that person also works for someone else. In any decent organization, two potentially conflicting things should occur:
- lower-level employees are given responsibility and the ability to work under their own initiative, and
- higher-level managers need to know what’s going on.
This is called management. The net result of this is that you will almost certainly, at some point in your career, be called upon to give a Status Report.
A Status Report can be as simple as a casual office conversation, an email, or a fancy presentation complete with overhead slides, video, and a soundtrack. No matter what the medium, there are a number of things that you should and should not do in a status report. Here’s my list of the most important things to understand about a status report; forget these at your peril.
1. No surprises
Surprisingly, a status report isn’t about you reporting on your status. Your manager should already have a general idea of your or your project’s status. If you have problems with your project (for example, you’ve fallen behind schedule), then you need to let your manager know immediately, and not wait until it’s time to present your status report.
