Monthly Status Report Template PPT Download

Monthly Report

The Monthly Status Report PPT Template can provide a comprehensive update to the project team, business stakeholders, sponsors, or senior management. A monthly report needs to be detailed; hence the report covers the project team, project health card, schedule, financials, risks, and decisions. 

The monthly Report Template has the following sections –

• Project Team.
• Project News and Updates.
• Project Health Card.
• Schedule and Task Status.
• Project Financials.
• Project Change Log.
• Project Risks & Issues.
• Project Actions & Decisions.

Advantages of sending the monthly project status report -

• Generally, the weekly status report is brief and does not allow a project manager to explain things in detail. A monthly report can be elaborate and detailed.

• Having a monthly report forces a stock tacking action from the project management perspective and performs a review of the last month. A weekly status report focuses only on the last week.

• It allows the project manager to explain or highlight the project team's achievements or issues to the senior management.

• The monthly status report details all the risks, issues, and change requests open, giving a clear of the project status to everyone. In a weekly status report, you can report only a few items.

• The project Budget can be explained and documented in detail. In deviations can also be documented for future references.

• The monthly report template can be used as a tracking document as it lists all the actions. Some of the actions could be assigned to senior management, and this template can be used to track the progress.

• Sections like project news give a project manager the flexibility to describe any activity that may not be part of the general project status update.

• As the report is PowerPoint-based, it can be easily used in presentations.

Project Team

• The purpose of this section is to introduce the project team.

• If anyone has questions about who is working on the project, then they can refer to this slide.

• It can also be used to indicate any changes in the project team monthly.

• This slide contains the Project Manager, Project Sponsor, Control Team, and the Project Team.

Project News and Updates

• This section of the template should be used to publish the latest news on the project.

• Typical news will consist of any major milestones accomplished, deadlines missed, major changes to the project scope, a brief update on task progress, mention of any major risks or issues affecting the project.

• The update should be in bullet points and should be as brief as possible.

• This section is one of the most-read sections, so a project manager should cover all the project's key highlights for management or business stakeholders.

• This section of the template can also be used to provide updates about resourcing issues in the project.

Project Health Card 

• The project health card gives an overall picture of all the key parameters of the project.

• The overall project status is an indicator of the status of the entire project.

• Red means off track, Amber means needs attention, Green means all good.

• The overall status can be just the project manager's call or a rule which sets out the minimum number of Amber's or Red's that the project parameter has.

• For example, your organization may agree that if two parameters are red, then the overall is red and 3 ambers, then overall are amber.

• With the status indicator, you should enter a brief note about the status.

• It is important to put a note, especially when there is an issue with the project.

• The management looks at the project's status with interest as it can easily point out issues with the project.

Project Schedule and Tasks

• The schedule and tasks section has two subsections - the top section to display the schedule and the second to update the tasks.

• The schedule section can have a high-level schedule or a detailed task table. Having a good visual Gantt makes it easy for the management to understand the project timeline.

• Under the tasks section, you can update the task completed this month, tasks planned for next month, and what tasks got delayed.

• See How to create a Project Plan.

Project Financials

• The project financials section has two subsections - first, the overall budget and monthly tracking.

• The first section should detail the individual items with actual and planned. Any variance should be reported in the variance column.

• The monthly tracking section allows everyone to view how the project budget is tracking monthly.

• Tracking the project budget every month is a good practice as it will tell the project manager and the management how the monthly expenses are being managed.

• Typically you would have Resourcing Costs, Software Costs, Hardware Costs, and Other Costs.

• Calculate Budget using MS Excel.

Project Change Log

• Reviewing the project changelog is a good practice, and by including it in the status report, everyone can be informed about the change requests pending.

• The project change log section includes total change requests logged, open change requests, and how many were approved.

• The section should also list all the open change requests, and the list can come from the changelog or change register. THIS IS A MUST.

Project Risks and Issues

• All the stakeholders should be aware of ALL THE OPEN risks and issues regardless of the severity or priority, or impact; hence this should be included in the monthly report template.

• Everyone related to the project should be aware of all the open issues and risks.

• The section contains two columns for risks and issues. For both risks and issues, the total number of open risks/issues, the total number of medium open risks/issues, and total risks/issues logged this month. (You may also be interested in the issue log template).

• The slide should also contain the list of OPEN risks and issues from the risk register.

• Learn Project Risks Management with Excel Risk Register.

Project Actions and Decisions

• The actions and decision section allows a project manager to report which action is pending and which decisions were made.

• The section lists the action items and open decisions. It also lists actions and decisions which are overdue, making the management aware of the items pending with them.

• The key thing to note is that actions and decisions have an overdue need to be actioned ASAP.

• If there are too many decisions, you can add a slide for decisions in the monthly report template.

• The action items and decisions can be coming from other meetings. See How to Write Effective Meeting Minutes & Download Free Templates.