Albert AharonianProject Manager - Information Systems| LibertyGeorgetown, Ontario, Canada
Hi Everyone. I've been tasked with creating a visual aid for use during functional and executive status update meetings. The main purpose is to provide awareness to other functional teams who may need to contribute information on risks, dependencies, or impact but are not always willing or very vocal during the meetings. If we could have a visual (template) to capture high level information on critical tasks and somehow assist in engaging participants to validate status, that would be helpful. The focus of these meetings is on work to be completed and not work already completed. Thoughts and opinions are welcome....thanks in advance. Saving Changes...
you could check the Templates section of this community to draw inspiration, but it sounds like a simple table with rows for each major deliverable, activity or milestone with columns for the relevant data elements (e.g. risks, dependencies) would suffice.
I'd start with something simple to use as a prototype for helping your stakeholders determine what they really want and how they'd want it presented.
Design of effective status charts will vary greatly depending on your needs but here are a few generic bits of advice:
- If you have multiple types of deliverables, you may wish to separate them such as in a "4-square" format. Items due, risks, help needed, and EVM is one of many ways to divide up the slide.
- Color code things for importance. People will focus on the red and yellow items. Don't make the audience struggle to know where to look.
- Don't crowd the chart. If there is enough info that you need a tiny font it becomes the "eye chart" used to test your vision. That is unreadable to most people. Summarize the message on the main page, and use a backup page for the lower level details if needed.
- Consider views of different time-frames. Late items, nearly due items, and 2 week look-ahead items could be separate and discussed at a different meeting cadence. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Is something obvious to write that it will depends on your audience. But in my actual work place we use one-page-report with traffic light approach with a color (green-yellow-red) per: -Overall -Financial -Schedule -Resource -Scope -Risk Including in the report key accomplishments, upcoming activities, schedule milestones. Each color is setup according to organizational rules. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Albert
as you ask for tips with interdependencies:
I once used a whiteboard with a permanent matrix of all teams / functions on each axis. If one team requested something from another team, they put a yellow sticky in the box (vertical axis = requestor, horizontal axis = addressee). Once a week all team leads gathered and discussed the status (15-30 minutes).
Urgent requests were also put there but of course addressed separately.
A request could be a mere information, a request for comment or approval, or a request for a deliverable or resource. Color codes helped us focus on priorities.
Between meetings, anybody could go to the wall and see what the status was.
Seems to be a similar idea as Keith had.
Thomas Saving Changes...
Mary NevilleDevelopment Services Manager| TempWorks SoftwareBlaine, Mn, United States
It probably depends on your industry and company culture. I work in software development management and we've worked cross-functionally throughout the organization to ensure everyone understands and uses our issue tracking software (e.g., JIRA, Azure DevOps).
I've developed dashboards that bring visibility to our software development projects. These include statuses of in-progress projects, items that need attention, and color-coded risk statuses. I chose this method because it updates in real-time from a single source of truth with the ability to drill down to the details if desired. We can also link information to our visual roadmap that is used by the executive leadership team.
That being said, our Technical Project Managers are responsible for following up on risks, driving action items related to risks, and escalating to management if they are not able to mitigate with a specified period of time. Saving Changes...
