Clarity

Data from project and program status reports in CA PPM flows into our data warehouse for use in executive level reporting.  Different executive level reports require the same data - Key Accomplishments, or Upcoming Activities for example – but at differing levels of detail.  We are trying to determine the best way to meet this need. One might be to allow multiple status reports with an attribute indicating which level of reporting each should feed.  Has anyone faced a similar challenge?  If so, what approaches did you consider and what did you choose to implement?

From an executive reporting perspective, less is certainly more if you want to prevent information fatigue.

So right approach.

I'd advise preventing duplication of effort for end user, i.e. use one status report.

So to get that executive summary of the updates you have two real options:

• use the first sentence/paragraph of the update in the exec reporting

or

• create a dedicated executive summary field which allows lower character count

The latter creates duplication, but has the benefit of being obvious as to what is being reported.

You could also go for a cut off, but that isn't very user friendly

We aggregate from Status Reports up into Scorecards. Single status report each week per Project & Program. The Scorecards have different UIs based upon audience & use case. We slice & dice by Project, Project Manager, Program, Portfolio, Sponsor, Steering Team and Investment OBS. Attached is a PDF of a presentation I gave on this at a PMI event last year.

Great presentation

How do you handle text type updates though for executive audiences?

Looks like there is an overall status and then the RAG's in the scorecard, i.e. not all the updates

Hi Andrew. The most common report used has the Scorecards on the first page(s) and the individual Status Reports on the following pages. This travels around in email as a PDF.

In application we keep this same scorecard layout (on Portfolios) with a link icon to the status report instance on the project.

The thought here is one can get a good lay of the land from the Scorecard, but they always have the ability to drill to the details.

Does this answer your question?

I see you have the schedule/scope/cost/resource text comments on the next page. Looks good.

Like the addition of decisions 

Having a Decision Log in Clarity

Page/Portlet/Report capture and display Project decisions

Yup, not ideal, but the best I can do today. Ideally I'd like DHTML-like popups with the comments when a user mouses over an indicator.

Dynamically Driven DHTML Mouse-over Popups in Studio Portlets.

Rob shared the WMC solution with us a year or so ago.  I think the top, most important factor I saw in their success was top-down reasoned, management involvement.  Project managers do their status reports, because management is reviewing/using their input.  If a project manager is late, management doesn't go nuts - but if status reports go missing for a couple weeks or more, follow-up/pressure does mount - the non-compliant project manager really stands-out.

Please, take a look at this new idea, as it may help with generation of status reports from notes taken during meetings.

Enhanced Project Note/Meeting Recording Capability

If you like it, please indicate and vote it up!  If you can improve the idea, please make your suggestions known!

Dale

Hi HKeaton1 - Did any of the responses help answer your question? If so please mark as Correct Answer. Thanks!

We have developed Exec Portlets within Clarity.  This way they can see the data in realtime, and can also navigate to the project if required for additional information.  In particular, they are using this approach at their quarterly meetings and have Clarity open and displayed to talk about their projects at the meeting.

If your looking into this, the OTTB page/portlets "Status Report Review" with a bit of tweaking will work very nicely.

A few years ago the Senior managers and directors of the location I was at were all fighting to get their information into a status report for the CIO. They were all sure that the CIO wanted to see the information. This made the generation of the report very awkward and next to impossible to get everyone's agreement. 

I grew tired of all the bickering and posturing and scheduled 5 minutes with the CIO. I took a copy of the exiting report and said to him "What do you like in this report?", "What do you want removed from the report?", and "What would you like to see in this report?". In five minutes and with three questions I was able to get the requirements from the CIO for his report.

Different audiences require different information. Nothing is wrong with having multiple status reports providing the information in them is consistent and fulfills the audience requirements.