Before a project is started, a detailed plan of the tasks is prepared to be completed in every stage. The completion of every task leads to the completion of the project itself. Therefore, you must be aware of the project’s status in progress. Project status can be a detailed or short overview, depending on how the manager wants to look at the project. However, here we will talk about how it helps an organization.
Why Is Project Status Important?
Knowing the Project Status makes it easier for you to make other decisions and understand the project’s progress. For example, as you know, sometimes there might be a need for change. It helps you decide when to implement the change, not to affect the project.
With time, many factors change, so it calls for necessary actions. It helps take necessary actions in the changed situation.
How To Know The Project Status?
Analyzing the Project Status requires constant monitoring and controlling throughout the project process. Monitoring and controlling help you be aware of the entire process and take action whenever needed.
Here are some activities included in the monitoring and controlling process.
- Comparison of expected results and the actual ones
- Evaluating performance
- Assuring every resource is available for project use
- Deciding the right action taken, only if needed
- Risk Management
This process helps translate it from information to knowledge for you. Then, it helps you and other managers to make certain decisions.
Different Project Status Categories
When a project starts till it ends, every project stage is categorized according to its status. It helps you to understand where the progress of the project is at. Here are some common categories which help organizations report their project status.
- New, a project is categorized as new when it has been accepted by the organization but hasn’t started yet.
- Open when a project has been assigned to a project team. After receiving the project, the team should start working on it.
- In Progress, after starting the project, the team should change the status to this. After that, however, the team should complete the project within a given timeline.
- Completed once the project is finished and tested. Now is the time to present it to your customers and other stakeholders.
Project teams need to give a timely update on the project status. With the project, many other tasks need to be done by managers. If they aren’t aware, it may cause problems. Therefore, effective coordination between the project team and the project manager is significant.
As the completion gets near, other steps should be taken to help execute the project with the stakeholders. That is why it plays an important role.
Final Words
Here are some important roles project status plays in an organization. This is all you need to know about it. It is a manager’s responsibility to ask the team to update the status on a timely basis.