When to Create Customized Stakeholder Reports

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reports

Reports

Standardized project communication is part of effective stakeholder management, and yet at times customized reports may be best. Here are tips for when to invest the additional effort to create customized reports:

A key stakeholder has unique priorities. Stakeholders have unique priorities. Often, customized reports are needed to address those priorities. For example, your finance director may be the only stakeholder interested in your project cash flow from month to month. A project report with specific spending details for your influential and engaged finance director may be appropriate to keep your project moving forward. Don’t volunteer to provide customized reports for every unique stakeholder priority, but be prepared to do so when required to secure stakeholder buy-in.

A risk mitigation strategy calls for customized reports. Awareness can be an effective risk mitigation response. For example, if staff shortages present a project risk, a customized report for the staffing coordinator to address planned versus actual staff hours would be a prudent risk response. Customized reporting can also identify risk triggers that signal a risk coming to fruition and invoke response strategies. While standard reports can usually do this, other reporting may be necessary to surface risk triggers to keep your project on track.

The project gets stuck. Information is usually step 1 for getting a bogged project going again. Customized reports for key stakeholders could be the catalyst for resetting your struggling project. For example, if your stakeholders have conflicting project objectives, customized reports that feature each stakeholder’s area of interest can maintain buy-in and get the project re-focused — or keep it from stalling in the first place.

A stakeholder is stuck.  Influential stakeholders may need to see data presented in a different format or require more detail before they give you their support. After trying to emphasize control capabilities using standard reports, consider alternative reporting to get the support of a critical stakeholder.

You need to reinforce a point. As project managers, we often have foresight to outcomes that busy stakeholders don’t see. Customized reports that demonstrate your concern can be effective in getting the support you need. Say a senior leader gives his staff a generic direction like “make time to work on this project.” As a project manager, you may know that staff is struggling with their everyday operational tasks and will have difficulty accomplishing project work. If your pleas to the senior leader for more detailed direction fall on deaf ears, a report that shows actual allocation of work to the project versus the senior leader’s expectation might demonstrate the need for more detailed prioritization from the leader.

For more about stakeholder management and communications, check out Doug Rose’s Project Management Foundations: Communication course.

This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you click my links and make a purchase.

Photo by Bernd Klutsch on Unsplash

From Newbie to Know-it-all

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technology expertI knew nothing about Project, QuickBooks, Visio, Basecamp and other tools when I started. I was a project manager and business owner faced with complicated tools I needed to do my jobs. Here are the techniques I use to master software quickly:

Take classes: Take more than one. Different teachers cover different topics and might provide great tips you haven’t heard anywhere else. Students learn in different ways – listening, watching, doing, and so on —  so it’s important to find an instructor who teaches in a way that resonates with you.

Read a book or two: If you’re really serious about mastering a product, get a book about it. Books can go into a lot more detail. Plus they have indexes to help you find topics and paper books are easy to flip through. eBooks are easy to search.

Read blogs about the product: Whether it’s the product blog or a blog from another organization, you can find incredibly helpful information there.

Search help: But don’t start in the in-product help. Use your browser and try different combinations of keywords or phrases. You’ll find results from product help but also from numerous other sites. Those other sites often have more detailed answers and great troubleshooting tips. Click the results that sound most like your question. If you don’t find an answer, click other results or try new keywords in your search. I have a very old HP LaserJet printer that works like a champ. I followed many links and eventually found info on the driver I needed to get the printer to work with Windows 10 – buried deep within HP help.

Post questions in product forums/groups: Product-related groups on LinkedIn, forums on the product website or forums hosted by other organizations have lots of knowledgeable people willing to share their expertise. You’re more likely to get helpful answers if you describe your issue in detail. Include the steps you took, what you expected, and what happened instead.

Explore on your own: Poke around the software. Try things. Test what happens when you perform different steps or use different software options. Use sample files to experiment. The more you do this, the better you’ll get at discovering things on your own.

Note: It’s tempting to immediately jump to asking an expert for an answer. That’s reasonable when you’re facing a tight deadline. However, you’ll learn and remember more when you expend some effort finding your answer.

Check out my courses on Linked In Learning here.

This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you click my links and make a purchase.

#project, #quickbooks, #projectpointers, #bonniebiafore