Project status report

Field record

One period, one project — where each workstream got to, what is next, and how it is going in the judgment of whoever signed it.

Nothing here calculates the color

Every reporting tool eventually computes status from the open issues and the dates, and every organization that has one eventually learns to manage the calculation. Green becomes a thing you achieve by closing rows. This asks a person to say what they think, with their name at the top of the page, which is a much harder thing to fake and a much easier thing to act on.

It does not assemble itself

The report does not read the issue log or the risk register. That is a feature: a page that filled itself in would be a page written by nobody, and the value of a status report is entirely in somebody having sat down and thought about what to say. The other lists are there for when you want to check.

Where it sits

What is going wrong now belongs in the issue log, what might belongs in the risk register, changes to what you are delivering in the change request log, and decisions worth remembering in the decision log.

A report written by a person. CompliMaint calculates no percent complete, earned value or forecast date, and does not derive the overall state from anything — every judgment on it is one somebody made and signed. Everything runs on your device.

Questions people ask

Does it work out the overall status for me?
No, and that is the single most deliberate decision in this tool. The moment a status is computed, people manage the calculation instead of the project: they close issues to keep it green and the report stops meaning anything. Here it is a judgment you choose and put your name to, and nothing in this product reads it, rolls it up or trends it.
Does it pull in my issues and risks automatically?
No. It would be easy, and it would produce a report nobody had thought about. Writing the two sentences about what happened this period is the work; assembling a page from other lists is not the same thing and reads exactly like what it is. The issue log and risk register are one click away when you want to look.
Is there a percent complete?
No, nor earned value, nor a forecast date. Percent complete on anything that is not measured in units is a number somebody guessed, and it is guessed optimistically until the last ten percent takes half the time. Say what happened and what is next, in words.
What is a project here?
A piece of work that is not a job. A job in this product is minted when a customer accepts an estimate and carries a contract sum; a project has neither, which is why it is a separate thing with its own stages. You can create one straight from the picker — a name is all it asks for.