Challenges and Pitfalls of Status Reporting in Project Management

This article discusses the challenges and pitfalls of status reporting in project management, including data falsification, lack of active control, and inconsistent reporting. It also explains the differences between status reports provided for teams, sponsors, and steering committees.

Running head: DISCUSSION POST
DISCUSSION POST
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1DISCUSSION POST
Part A: Discussion post
Challenges and pitfalls of different status reports
The major challenges that are associated with efficient status reporting in risk or project
management are reliant on different factors. Factors and circumstances relating to misreporting
activities by the project staffs and the unreliable reporting of the different situations might
challenge the effectiveness of the reporting activities (de Carvalho, Patah & de Souza Bido,
2015). In this relation, the personality traits play a major role in influencing the reporting quality
of the people involved in the project. On the other hand, the changes in the work culture and the
prioritization of success of the project might result to overlooking the small pitfalls (Damodaran
et al., 2014). The lack of proficient status reporting might lead a project to its failure.
However, apart from the characteristics of the project staff, in most of the research it has
been found that the executives often ignores bad news with the focus of maintaining the
positivity of the study. The changes in the reporting types and procedures might affect the
addictiveness of the people associated with the project. On the other hand, the lack of active
control and presence of the project manager might result to falsified status reporting which might
affect the potentials of the status reporting criteria. It has been noted that in most of the cases the
lack of consistent reporting might affect the rate of operations of the project while operating on
the objectives. The lack of on time reporting might again result to schedule overruns in a project
operation. Therefore, in this relation, the diverse range of operations that are initiated by the
organizations are supported through the enhanced means of reporting.
Data falsification during status reporting and the level of honesty of the people associated
with the project affects the outcome of the study. The different changes that are being
enumerated by the project managers are reliant on the efficient understanding of the status.

2DISCUSSION POST
However, the lack of efficient status reporting affects the rate of operations in project leading to
project failure. The major challenges that are being faced by the people supports an organization
in maintaining the efficiency of the operations while operating in the different markets. In this
relation, the lack of proficient status reporting would result to project failure due to the
insufficiency of knowledge of the progress and the succession steps that might be conducted in
alignment with the project objectives. Therefore, the research clearly enumerated the different
factors that might result to discrepancies in status reporting in a project.
Differences between the status reports provided for teams, sponsor, and steering committee
A status report reflects on the milestones that are achieved, the deliverables that are
completed, the costs incurred, human effort expended and the unresolved issues. Therefore, the
status reports provides a clear view to the stakeholders of the position of the undertaking and the
manner in which the challenges might be resolved with the objective of influencing the
proficiency of the organizational operations in accordance to the objectives. In this relation, the
involvement of the stakeholder groups are encouraged through the accuracy of the status
reporting which would assist in maintaining the efficiency of the operations in alignment with
the needs of the venture. In this relation, the teams will be provided with status reports which
would portray the deliverables that are completed and the milestones that are achieved. The
delineation of the milestone related information and the information on deliverables would
support the project drivers in making the stakeholder group aware of the next steps that might be
considered by the same. On the other hand, the investors of the project will be provided
information on the costs that were incurred by the organization in running the project. The
transmission of different information on the costs that are incurred by the organization would
support in influencing the investment related decision making capacity of the investors.

3DISCUSSION POST
The steering committee is provided with status reports of the overall operations that are
undertaken as a part of the project. The milestones that were achieved during the operations and
the deliverables that are completed would support the project managers with knowledge of the
different processes and the manner in which the operations might be coordinated. The
collaborative functioning of the different stakeholders supports an organization in maintaining
the efficiency of the operation in alignment with the objectives of the organization (Keil et al.,
2014).
In this relation, the collaborative functioning of the project managers is supported
through the knowledge of the overall costs and labour that might be invested for adhering to the
schedule and budget. Therefore, there are basic differences between the status reports which are
provided to the teams, sponsor, and steering committee with the objective of making the same
aware of the progress made by the project. The monitoring and control related operation of the
stakeholders are supported through the enhanced knowledge of the progress and the different
issues that might be addressed by the same in the process design. Therefore, the status report
supports in identifying the needs of the stakeholders in identifying the position of the operations
and thereby ensure subtle amount of changes with the objective of guiding the project to success.

4DISCUSSION POST
References
Damodaran, R., Chachad, A. A., Venkatasubramanian, R., Balasubramanian, D., & Bhoria, N.
(2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,732,416. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
de Carvalho, M. M., Patah, L. A., & de Souza Bido, D. (2015). Project management and its
effects on project success: Cross-country and cross-industry comparisons. International
Journal of Project Management, 33(7), 1509-1522.
Keil, M., Smith, H. J., Iacovou, C. L., & Thompson, R. L. (2014). The pitfalls of project status
reporting. MIT Sloan Management Review, 55(3), 57.