In fact, they can strengthen it. The key is spotting them and making adjustments to stay on the right path. One of the best ways to avoid cost overrun is by calculating cost variance.

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Cost Benefit Analysis Template

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What Is Cost Variance in Project Management?

Cost variance (also referred to as CV) is the difference between project costs estimated during the planning phase and the actual costs. In other words, it’s how much actual costs vary from budgeted costs. Calculating cost variance is how project managers track expenses to see if a project is under or over budget.

These calculations are part of a technique called earned value management (EVM). In an EVM system, the goal of cost management is to establish whether a variance is positive, negative or zero.

When project managers have this earned value analysis information, they can make the necessary adjustments to stay on track. If a variance is extremely high (negative), changes need to be made. If there’s an extremely low-cost variance (positive) or zero variance, they can take it as a sign of effective cost management.

Positive Cost Variance vs. Negative Cost Variance

Cost variance (CV) is a key performance metric in project management that measures the difference between the budgeted cost of work performed (earned value) and the actual cost incurred. It helps project managers assess whether a project is under or over budget.

Positive cost variance indicates that the project is under budget. This happens when the earned value is greater than the actual cost. For example, if your project has earned $50,000 worth of work but you’ve only spent $45,000, your cost variance is +$5,000. A positive CV suggests efficient cost management and resource use.

Negative cost variance means the project is over budget. This occurs when the actual cost exceeds the earned value. For instance, if you’ve completed $40,000 worth of work but spent $45,000, your cost variance is -$5,000. A negative CV flags potential issues such as scope creep, underestimation, or misallocated resources, and usually requires corrective action.

Understanding and tracking cost variance is crucial for maintaining financial control and ensuring project profitability.

How to Calculate Cost Variance in Project Management

Cost variance is exactly how much a project is over or under budget. This is calculated using the cost variance formula.

Cost Variance Formula

In the earned value management (EVM) methodology used in project management, cost variance (CV) measures the difference between the value of work performed and the actual cost incurred.

It is calculated using the formula below, where EV stands for earned value and AC is actual cost. A positive CV indicates under budget; a negative CV signals cost overruns.

Cost Variance (CV) = Earned Value (EV) – Actual Cost (AC)

• Actual Cost (AC): The total cost incurred for work performed on a project up to a specific point. It includes all direct and indirect expenses, such as labor, materials, and equipment, regardless of the project’s progress.
• Earned Value (EV): The budgeted value of the work actually completed at a given point in time. It reflects project progress in monetary terms and is used to compare planned versus actual performance.

Cost Variance Calculation Methods

Cost variance calculation methods are techniques used to measure the difference between a project’s planned and actual costs at various points in time.

There are three main cost variance calculation methods, cumulative cost variance method, period-by-period cost variance method and variance at completion method.

These three methods apply the cost variance formula (CV = EV – AC) at different stages of the project.

Cumulative Cost Variance Method

The cumulative cost variance (CV) method calculates the difference between the earned value (EV) and actual cost (AC) of a project up to a specific point in time. It reflects the overall cost performance across the entire project duration to date.

Formula: CV = EV – AC

This method provides a high-level overview of whether the project is under or over budget, making it useful for ongoing budget tracking and trend analysis. It helps stakeholders assess long-term project performance rather than isolated cost issues.

Period-by-Period Cost Variance Method

The period-by-period cost variance method focuses on short time intervals—typically weekly or monthly—calculating the cost variance for each specific period.

Formula (per period): CV = EV (for the period) – AC (for the period)

This method allows project managers to pinpoint when cost deviations occur, offering a more detailed and immediate insight into spending issues. It’s ideal for identifying short-term trends or sudden spikes in costs that may not yet be reflected in cumulative data.

Variance at Completion (VAC) Method

Variance at completion (VAC) forecasts the expected cost variance at the end of the project. It compares the total project budget, known as the budget at completion (BAC), with the forecasted cost, or estimate at completion (EAC).

Formula: VAC = BAC – EAC

This method helps project managers anticipate whether they are likely to complete the project under or over budget, enabling better long-term financial planning and corrective action before project closure.

What Are the Main Causes of Cost Variance In Project Management?

Cost variance in project management refers to the difference between the estimated cost and the actual cost of a project. While small variances are expected, significant differences often signal deeper issues that can affect project success. Understanding the root causes of cost variance is essential for controlling budgets, managing expectations and delivering value.

Inaccurate Cost Estimates

Poor initial cost estimates can derail a project’s financial trajectory from the start. This usually occurs when estimates are based on incomplete data, guesswork, or overly optimistic assumptions. Without thorough research and expert input, budget baselines may not reflect the true scope or complexity of the work.

Scope Creep

When new features, tasks or deliverables are added to a project without corresponding budget adjustments, it leads to scope creep. This often results from unclear requirements or lack of change control processes. The more the scope expands, the more costs rise—often unexpectedly.

Schedule Delays

Delays in project timelines can significantly increase costs due to extended resource use, contract penalties or the need to accelerate later work phases. Time-sensitive costs like equipment rentals or staff salaries often become inflated when a project runs behind schedule.

Resource Cost Fluctuations

The price of labor, materials and subcontractor services can change due to market conditions, availability or external economic factors. If a budget doesn’t account for potential price shifts or inflation, it can cause substantial cost overruns.

Project Risks

Unexpected events such as regulatory changes, weather delays or technical issues can disrupt progress and incur additional costs. Without a robust risk management plan, projects may struggle to absorb the financial impact of such events.

Low Productivity or Resource Utilization Inefficiency

When teams aren’t operating efficiently—due to poor training, unclear direction or lack of coordination—project tasks take longer and require more resources. Inefficient resource usage drives up labor costs and affects overall cost performance.

Cost Variance Analysis Examples

To better understand the concept of cost variance analysis we have created an example in a couple of different industries. This should help to show how the process works in a real-life scenario.

Construction Cost Variance Analysis Example

This cost variance analysis example is for the construction industry. Here, the project is working on the foundation of an office building.

Project: Office Building Construction

Task: Foundation Work

• Planned Value (PV): $80,000
• Earned Value (EV): $75,000
• Actual Cost (AC): $90,000

CV = $75,000 – $90,000 = –$15,000

Analysis: The foundation work is $15,000 over budget. Although 75 percent of the work has been completed (EV), actual spending exceeded expectations due to unforeseen soil stabilization issues and higher-than-estimated concrete costs. This unfavorable variance highlights a need to revise cost estimates for future phases and assess vendor pricing accuracy.

Manufacturing Cost Variance Analysis Example

In this cost variance analysis example, we’re dealing with a manufacturing company. They have a run of steel frames that require welding and assembly.

Project: Production of 500 Steel Frames

Task: Welding and Assembly

• Planned Value (PV): $60,000
• Earned Value (EV): $55,000
• Actual Cost (AC): $50,000

Cost Variance (CV) = EV – AC
CV = $55,000 – $50,000 = +$5,000

Analysis: The welding and assembly task is $5,000 under budget. Although only 92 percent of the planned work has been completed, the actual cost came in lower due to higher labor efficiency and a bulk discount on welding supplies. This favorable variance suggests strong production performance and potential to reallocate savings to later stages.

Understanding Project Costs

All projects cost money, regardless of their size, scope or deliverables. We’ve all heard “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The same goes for projects – there’s no such thing as a project without costs. These costs come in many different forms, from the cost of materials to simply the cost of doing business (rent, salaries, etc.). It’s the project manager’s job to take all of these costs into account and create a flexible budget.

Project costs, no matter the type, need to be properly managed and tracked throughout the life cycle of a project. If project managers don’t keep a close eye on the project, it can be detrimental to the project’s success. Plus, having real-time data access is essential to helping project managers make adjustments.

Project management software is foundational in planning and tracking project costs. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has the resource-focused tools you need to compare your planned and actual costs in real time. Use our in-depth Gantt chart to set a baseline once you’ve scheduled your tasks, costs and resources. Use it to understand your project costs at a glance and make adjustments as needed in real time.

Different Types of Project Costs

To fully understand project cost variance, it’s helpful to be familiar with the main types of project costs. Take a look at the four you’re most likely to see. Most projects have all four, and each can contribute to overall cost variance:

• Direct Costs: Think of direct costs as costs that go straight to the project to achieve deliverables. A helpful example of a direct cost is the cost of the material needed to build something. The cost of these materials is going toward creating an end product.
• Indirect Costs: Indirect costs, on the other hand, go toward funding “behind the scenes” expenses incurred throughout the life of a project. They’re also known as overhead costs. For example, the cost of renting an office space is a common expense fixed overhead. This expense must be paid to complete the project, but it also goes toward supporting other projects.
• Fixed Costs: Fixed costs are expenses with set prices that aren’t subject to any kind of change. These are dependable costs that will not fluctuate and potentially throw off a budget. Both direct and indirect costs can also be fixed costs (or variable costs). A fixed cost, for example, might look like the flat fee a contractor charges for their services.
• Variable Costs: Variable costs, on the other hand, are not as predictable. For example, the cost of equipment rental may go up or down depending on the vendor, the demand or how long the equipment is needed.
• Overhead Costs: Overhead costs are indirect expenses required to run a project or business, such as utilities, rent, and administrative salaries. They support operations but aren’t tied to specific deliverables or tasks.

Related: Free Project Budget Template for Excel

Other Types of Cost Variance In Project Management and Cost Accounting

Besides the cost variance formula that’s used in earned value management, there are other types of cost variance that are used in project management and cost accounting, especially in manufacturing and construction projects.

Material Cost Variance (MCV)

Material cost variance (MCV) is a key metric in cost accounting and project management used to measure the difference between the expected cost of materials (based on standard costs) and the actual cost incurred.

MCV is most useful in manufacturing and construction projects where material expenses make up a significant portion of the total cost. It helps managers identify pricing issues, supplier performance problems, procurement inefficiencies or market-driven cost changes.

Material Cost Variance Formula

MCV = (SQ × SP) – (AQ × AP)

• SQ= Standard Quantity
• SP= Standard Price
• AQ= Actual Quantity
• AP= Actual Price

Labor Cost Variance (LCV)

Labor cost variance (LCV) is a project and cost management metric that measures the difference between the standard cost of labor and the actual labor cost incurred during a project or production cycle.

LCV is especially important in labor-intensive industries such as construction, manufacturing, and service-based projects. It is used to monitor efficiency, wage rate fluctuations and workforce productivity.

Labor Cost Variance Formula

LCV = (SH × SR) – (AH × AR)

• SH= Standard Hours
• SR= Standard Rate
• AH= Actual Hours
• AR= Actual Rate

Overhead Cost Variance

Overhead cost variance is a financial metric used to assess the difference between the budgeted (or standard) overhead costs and the actual overhead costs incurred during a project or production period.

This metric is particularly useful in environments with fixed budgets and recurring indirect costs, such as in manufacturing plants or large-scale infrastructure projects. Overhead cost variance helps managers understand how well they are controlling indirect spending and can highlight inefficiencies like underutilized facilities, inaccurate cost allocation methods, or unexpected increases in overhead expenses.

Variable Overhead Variance Formula

VOHV = (SH × SR) – (AH × AR)

• SH= Standard Hours
• SR= Standard Rate
• AH= Actual Hours
• AR= Actual Rate

Fixed Overhead Variance Formula

FOHV = Budgeted Fixed Overhead – Actual Fixed Overhead

Other Cost Variance Analysis Formulas Used in EVM

While the formula explained above is the main one used to calculate cost variance in project management, there are other earned value management (EVM) formulas that can help with cost variance analysis.

Cost Performance Index Formula

Cost Performance Index (CPI) = Earned Value (EV) / Actual Cost (AC)

A cost performance index (CPI) is a metric used to judge how well resources are being used in a project. When solving for a CPI, the value will be one of two things:

Less than or equal to 1 (resources are not being used efficiently)
Greater than or equal to 1 (resources are being used efficiently)

To solve for CPI, you must divide the earned value by actual costs.

To Complete Cost Performance Index Formula

To Complete Cost Performance Index (TCPI) = (Total Budget – EV) / (Total Budget – AC)

Solving for a complete cost performance index (TCPI) is extremely helpful, especially if you’re experiencing a high (negative) project cost variance. A TCPI is an index that shows how resources must be used for the rest of a project to come in under or on budget.

To find your TCPI, begin by subtracting your earned value from your total budget. Then, subtract your actual cost from the total budget. Last, divide the first quotient by the second quotient.

Free Cost Benefit Analysis Template

Before cost variance comes into play, you need to determine if the project expenses are justified. Download our free cost-benefit analysis template for Excel to quickly crunch the numbers and determine if the project makes sense from a cost perspective. Access to this data makes it easy for project managers to determine if a project will be successful.

How ProjectManager Helps Calculate Cost Variance in Real Time

Throughout the life of a project, you’ll want to have each of these cost variance formulas at your disposal. Thankfully, there are cost management tools that make keeping your eye on variances effortless so that you don’t have to manually crunch the numbers.

ProjectManager fills formulas with the correct values automatically and prevents any human error that can lead to major budgeting mistakes. Factors like total budget, actual costs, earned values and more are updated in real-time so that you’re always seeing the most current data.

Create and manage project budgets, as well as see how actual costs compare to planned costs on the project dashboard. The ProjectManager project dashboard updates automatically, so you’re always looking at the most current figures and make the smartest budgeting decisions. This makes all the difference between spotting cost variances and missing crucial details. Keep your eye on cost baselines, as well as spending and where projects are at in terms of budget.

Need to share this information with stakeholders? Create a budget report in only a few clicks to keep the team up to speed and making the best decisions together. Having this information at your fingertips and being able to share it is the difference between projects staying on budget and going over budget, which can result in cost overrun and total failure.

Calculating cost variance requires project management software robust enough to calculate and organize your data in real time. ProjectManager is online project management software that keeps your project’s costs within budget. Try it today with this free 30-day trial.

The post How to Calculate Cost Variance for a Project (Formula Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

First, we’ll answer the question: What is a dashboard? Then we’ll move on to what is typically included in a dashboard and illustrate some dashboard examples. For each, we’ll list the type of metrics that they monitor. We’ll end with a few free downloadable dashboard templates for a hands-on idea of how they work.

What Is a Dashboard?

A dashboard in project management is a visual tool that provides a real-time overview of key project data, metrics and performance indicators. Think of it as a control center—it brings together important information about a project’s progress, schedule, budget, risks and resources into a single, easy-to-read interface.

Dashboards are designed to help project managers, teams and stakeholders quickly assess the health and status of a project and make informed decisions without digging through lengthy reports. This leads to better decision making, improved communication and delivers real-time data that replaces the old, manual reporting style. Dashboards are ubiquitous in project management software, but not all are the same.

Elevate Project Dashboards with ProjectManager

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with powerful real-time dashboards to track project, program or portfolio performance in real time, with no setup required. Use the dashboard along with our other project views, including reports, Gantt charts, lists, sheets and calendars to keep projects on track.

• Track unique data on customized project and portfolio-level dashboards
• Turn dashboard data into custom reports in a matter of clicks
• Use free guest licenses to share pertinent data with stakeholders. Try it free

What Should Be Included in a Dashboard?

A well-designed project dashboard provides a clear, real-time snapshot of a project’s performance and progress. To be truly effective, a dashboard should include the most relevant and actionable data, presented in a way that’s easy to interpret. It should help teams and stakeholders make quick decisions, identify issues early and stay aligned throughout the project lifecycle.

Here’s a breakdown of the essential elements every dashboard should include.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): These core metrics show how well the project is performing against its goals. KPIs can vary depending on the project, but common ones include the task completion rate, budget vs. actual cost, schedule adherence, resource utilization and risk status.
• Data Visualization Charts: Visuals make complex data easier to understand. Dashboards should include: bar and pie charts for task status or resource allocation, Gantt charts for project timelines and dependencies and burn-down charts for tracking remaining work in agile projects.
• Comparisons and Trends: It’s important to not just see current data, but understand how it’s changed over time. Dashboards should show planned vs. actual timelines or costs, performance over weeks or sprints and historical trends in risk or workload.
• Filters and Drill-Down Features: Dashboards become even more powerful when users can customize their view. Filters allow users to sort by team member, department, task type or time. Drill-downs let users click into metrics to explore more detailed data.

5 Dashboard Examples

Now that we understand what is a dashboard and the various widgets that make it up, the next step is to explore the different dashboard examples. Let’s look at some of the more common ones and define them, as well as list the various things they usually track.

Project Dashboard

A project dashboard is a centralized tool that provides a real-time visual overview of a project’s progress, performance and key metrics. It helps project managers, teams and stakeholders track tasks, budgets, resources and potential risks in one place. By consolidating important project data, a project dashboard enhances decision-making, accountability and efficiency throughout the project lifecycle.

Here are the key components of a project dashboard.

• Project Timeline (Gantt Chart or Milestones): Displays the project schedule, critical deadlines and key milestones
• Task Progress and Completion Rates: Tracks task statuses to show what’s completed, in progress or delayed
• Budget vs. Actual Costs: Compares planned costs with real-time spending to prevent budget overruns
• Resource Allocation and Workload: Shows how team members and resources are distributed across tasks
• Risk and Issue Tracking: Identifies potential risks, bottlenecks and unresolved issues
• Key Deliverables and Deadlines: Highlights major project outputs and their due dates
• Status by Project Phase or Team: Breaks down progress by phase or department for better tracking

Business KPIs Dashboard

Another one of the dashboard examples we’d like to highlight is a business KPIs dashboard. It is a data-driven tool that provides a real-time snapshot of an organization’s performance based on KPIs. It helps business leaders and teams monitor progress toward financial, operational and strategic goals. By visualizing essential metrics in one place, this dashboard enables informed decision-making, efficiency improvements and growth tracking.

Here are the key metrics commonly included in a business KPIs dashboard.

• Revenue Growth and Profit Margins: Tracks sales performance and overall profitability
• Customer Acquisition and Retention: Measures how well the business attracts and keeps customers
• Operating Expenses: Monitors costs related to running the business
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauges customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Return on Investment (ROI): Assesses the profitability of investments and business initiatives
• Employee Productivity Metrics: Evaluates workforce efficiency and output
• Strategic Goal Tracking: Aligns business operations with long-term objectives

Marketing Dashboard

A marketing dashboard is another one of the commonly used dashboard examples. It’s a centralized tool that provides a real-time view of marketing performance across various channels. It helps marketing teams track key metrics, analyze campaign effectiveness and optimize strategies to maximize ROI. By visualizing data from multiple sources, a marketing dashboard enables data-driven decision-making, improved targeting and better allocation of marketing budgets.

Here are the key metrics commonly included in a marketing dashboard.

• Website Traffic and Bounce Rate: Measures the number of visitors and how many leave without engagement
• Conversion Rate by Channel: Tracks the percentage of visitors who take desired actions (e.g., sign-ups, purchases) across different marketing channels
• Cost per Lead (CPL) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Calculates how much is spent to acquire a lead or customer
• Email Campaign Metrics (Open Rate, Click-Through Rate): Analyzes email engagement and effectiveness
• Social Media Engagement: Measures interactions such as likes, shares and comments on social platforms
• SEO Keyword Rankings: Tracks website ranking positions for targeted search terms
• Lead Funnel Performance: Evaluates how leads move through the sales pipeline from awareness to conversion

Sales Dashboard

Another dashboard example is a sales dashboard. This real-time visual tool tracks and displays key sales metrics, helping teams monitor performance, identify trends and optimize the sales process. It gives sales managers, reps and stakeholders a clear view of how well targets are being met and where improvements can be made. With a well-designed dashboard, teams can make data-driven decisions, improve forecasting and boost revenue.

Here are some of the core elements commonly found in a sales dashboard.

• Monthly and Quarterly Sales Revenue: Total income generated over a specific period
• Sales Pipeline and Opportunity Stages: Tracks deals as they move through each phase of the sales cycle
• Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate: Measures the percentage of leads that successfully become customers
• Top-Performing Sales Reps: Highlights sales team members with the highest results or closed deals
• Deal Win Rate: The percentage of total deals that are successfully closed
• Average Deal Size: The typical revenue amount brought in per closed deal
• Sales Forecast vs. Actual: Compares projected sales with real outcomes to assess

Operational Management Dashboard

An operational management dashboard is one of the dashboard examples that is a powerful tool that provides a real-time overview of an organization’s core operations. It consolidates key metrics related to production, logistics, workforce performance and customer service into one centralized view. This type of dashboard helps operations managers monitor efficiency, reduce bottlenecks, maintain quality standards and ensure smooth day-to-day functioning across departments.

Here are the key components typically included in an operational management dashboard.

• Production Volume and Efficiency: Tracks output levels and how effectively resources are used during production
• Supply Chain and Inventory Levels: Monitors stock availability and supply chain performance to avoid shortages or overstock
• Order Fulfillment Times: Measures how quickly and accurately customer orders are processed and delivered
• Downtime and Maintenance Metrics: Captures machine or system downtime and scheduled maintenance to prevent disruptions
• Quality Control (Defect Rates): Tracks product defects or errors to ensure consistent quality standards
• Workforce Utilization: Shows how effectively employee time and skills are being used in operations
• Customer Support Response Times: Measures how quickly support teams respond to customer inquiries or issues

Benefits of Using Dashboards in Project and Business Management

The previous dashboard examples should make it clear that these are critical tools for managing projects and business. Dashboards provide a centralized view of critical data, allowing project managers and business leaders to monitor performance, track progress and make informed decisions with ease.

By consolidating key metrics—such as timelines, budgets, resources and KPIs—into one visual platform, dashboards eliminate the need to sift through multiple spreadsheets or reports. This streamlined access to information not only saves time but also enhances visibility, enabling teams to stay aligned and proactive throughout the project or business lifecycle.

Another significant benefit of using dashboards is their ability to highlight trends, identify risks early and track goals in real time. With dynamic charts, progress bars and comparison tools, users can quickly spot variances between planned and actual performance.

Whether it’s catching a cost overrun, recognizing a delay in task completion or seeing a dip in customer engagement, dashboards provide timely insights that help mitigate issues before they escalate. This level of responsiveness is crucial for maintaining control and achieving successful outcomes.

Dashboards also foster transparency and accountability across teams and stakeholders. By making project and business performance visible to everyone involved, they encourage collaboration, promote shared responsibility and support data-driven conversations.

When each team member can see how their work contributes to the bigger picture, engagement and motivation improve. At the same time, stakeholders gain confidence in the process, knowing they have a clear, real-time understanding of progress, risks and results.

Free Dashboard Templates

As promised, below are three free dashboard templates, which users can play with to execute the features showcased in our dashboard examples. These are only some of the over 100 free project management templates for Excel and Word that can be downloaded from our site. They cover all aspects of managing a project across multiple industries.

Business KPI Dashboard

Download this free business KPI dashboard for Excel to provide insight into how well the business is performing across various departments. The goal is to help leaders and teams monitor progress, spot trends and make informed decisions that align with strategic goals.

Project Dashboard Template

Use this project dashboard template for Excel to visually track and manage key aspects of a project in one centralized view. It helps project managers and teams monitor progress, performance and potential risks by displaying important metrics.

Budget Dashboard Template

A budget dashboard is a visual tool designed to help individuals or organizations track income, expenses and overall financial performance against a budget. This free budget dashboard template for Excel provides an overview of financial health by consolidating key budget data into interactive charts, graphs and summaries—all in one place.

ProjectManager Is the Best Dashboard Tool for Project Management

Using a template as a dashboard is going to be frustrating. Templates are status documents. That means all the project data must be manually entered. Therefore, one isn’t viewing real-time data, but is always looking in the rearview mirror. It takes online project management software to deliver the most accurate and current information about the project.

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has real-time dashboards for one or multiple projects. But that’s only the start of the tracking features available from our software.

Use Multiple Project Management Views

Data displayed on dashboards comes from team members updating their status. Gantt charts help schedule tasks, resources and costs. Then, set a baseline to track those metrics in real time. From there, teams have a choice of tools to execute their work. They can use kanban boards or task lists, both of which can record status updates that feed into the dashboard automatically. There’s even a calendar view for a monthly overview that stakeholders can use to stay updated.

Robust Resource Management and Cost Tracking Features

Other tools monitor progress and performance to help keep projects on track. When onboarding teams, their availability can be set, which helps streamline assignments. Project managers can view resource allocation across one or more projects on the color-coded workload chart. This makes it quick and easy to see who is overallocated or underutilized and balances the team’s workload without leaving the page to keep everyone working at capacity without threatening burnout.

A team page provides a daily or weekly snapshot of team activity, which can be filtered by progress or priority. Tasks can also be updated from this page. Customizable reports can focus on key data points or more general information to share with stakeholders, while secure timesheets track labor costs to help projects stay on budget.

Related Dashboard Content

For those still curious about how dashboards help manage projects, below are free links to recently published pieces on our blog that compare the dashboards of various project management software, construction dashboards and more.

• Free Excel Dashboard Templates
• Monday.com Dashboard: Key Features, Pros and Cons
• Notion Dashboard: Key Features, Pros and Cons
• Asana Dashboard: Key Features, Pros and Cons
• Why Use a Construction Project Dashboard?
• Trello Dashboard: Key Features, Pros and Cons

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post What Is a Dashboard? 5 Dashboard Examples appeared first on ProjectManager.

What Is an Issue Log?

An issue log is a simple list or spreadsheet that helps managers track the issues that arise in a project and prioritize a response to them. We have created an Excel Issue Log template you can download for free. It’s an easy way for you to manage those issues that always disrupt a project and resolve them before they develop into a problem that takes the project plan off track and grounds it in failure.  

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Issue Tracking Template

Use this free Issue Tracking Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

Why Is an Issue Log Important?

An issue log is a critical project management tool that provides a structured and systematic way to identify, track, manage and resolve problems that appear throughout a project. It offers a central repository for all identified problems, questions or concerns that could impact the project. Everyone on the team and relevant stakeholders can see this information, helping to improve visibility.

It also helps with proactive problem-solving. A formal issue-logging process can help identify and document potential problems before they escalate into major crises. As each issue is usually assigned to a person or team member, it’s clear who is accountable for taking action.

Issue logs also help establish a structured management process. It offers a consistent and standardized process for managing issues and ensuring all problems are handled in an organized manner. The team can then focus on addressing the most critical issues first.

An issue log template is great, but it’s not integrated with the rest of your project. ProjectManager has multiple project views that let teams use the tools they prefer to log issues. For example, teams can see their issue log of a task list and work their way through it. Managers can add priorities and even customize workflow and set up automated task approvals to make sure only they’re authorized to change the status to done. Get started with ProjectManager for free today!

Who Creates and Manages the Issue Log?

The project manager is usually responsible for creating and managing the issue log. They will set up the initial log, often on a spreadsheet, database or project management software. Then, they will define the fields to be tracked, such as the issue name, date reported, priority, status, assignee, etc.

This means the project manager is also responsible for logging issues, either documenting issues themselves or guiding team members on how to do so. They will track and monitor the log regularly to understand the current status of all issues.

Other roles, such as team members or senior leadership, may also be involved. This is especially the case when an issue escalates or requires strategic decision-making. Senior leadership, for example, can review escalated issues and choose to allocate additional resources as needed.

What Are the Components of an Issue Log?

An issue log is, at its most basic, a list where issues are collected as either ongoing or closed. This way you can track the issue from the time it’s identified until you have resolved it.

But an issue log can be more dynamic. They can order and organize issues by type and severity, which can help you prioritize and manage them—a key part of issue management. Therefore, you want to have column titles such as the following.

• Issue Number: If you want to track the issue, you should have an easy way to differentiate it from the others, because there’ll always be more than one.
• Status: It’s important to note whether the issue is open, in progress, blocked or done. This is where you’ll keep track of resolving it.
• Issue Description: Write down what the issue is, in detail. It might sound obvious, but you don’t want to have the same issue tracked repeated in your log, and you want the person who will resolve the issue able to clearly understand what has happened, so they don’t have to chase people up and delay the response.
• Category: You might want to categorize issues by department or vendor, or define the type of issue it is. These might vary depending on the project or team.
• Priority: You might not have time or resources to address every issue, so it’s crucial that you prioritize them. Are they low, medium or high priority? Now you can filter the log and work on those issues that are most important to the project.
• Assigned to: This is also of paramount importance. If the issue doesn’t have an owner, it’s likely never to get resolved. This is where you note the team member who is assigned to follow that issue to its resolution.
• Raised by: This is different from the assigned to owner, who will shepherd the issue through the project and work on resolving it. This person is the one who first identified it, and they should be noted here, as they might prove a resource later in terms of answering questions that work towards its resolution.
• Open Date: You want to have a time frame, and to do so you must have a beginning, which is the day the issue was identified.
• Closed Date: Now you have a firm timeline from start to finish, which can help when and if you go back to look at historic data when dealing with a similar issue in a later project.
• Comments: You always want space to jot down important information like how the issue was resolved, whether it was connected to another task, and the likelihood of recurrence, etc.

Issue Log Template

Our free issue log template helps you log issues as team members find them while working on the project. But more than just a list of issues, you can use this free issue tracking template for Excel to monitor progress as your team works to resolve the issue. Add the date opened and closed, priority, impact and more.

Issue Log Best Practices

When using an issue log there are a number of things you need to understand in order to get the most out of it. One is that you want to make sure you touch on all the components of an issue log. It might seem like a waste of time—you just want to get the issue fixed—but outlining what type of issue, describing it and so forth is all key to capturing and resolving the issue.

It’s also important to have a plan with milestones. Meet with the team member who owns the issue and together come up with a way to quickly eradicate the issue. By adding milestones to the plan, you have a simple and effective way to track their progress. If they’re not meeting those milestones then you might have to review the plan or add resources to keep it on track.

Related Issue Tracking Templates

If you’re not using project management software you can still log issues with our free templates. We have many project management templates for Excel and Word that help you manage every aspect of your project. Here are some that can help you create an issue log, track progress and report back to stakeholders to keep them updated.

Risk Register Template

This free risk register template helps you list down potential project risks before they turn into issues. By doing this you can be prepared to mitigate issues faster, which could help you reduce the impact that issues might cause in your project budget or schedule.

Project Dashboard Template

Our free project dashboard template for Excel furthers your ability to monitor and track the work being done by your team to get those issues resolved. While not able to monitor in real time as in project management software, you can still set up metrics to track your tasks, workload, task lengths and costs in colorful graphs.

Project Status Report Template

Another free template is ideal for stakeholder presentations as you update them on issues in the project. Our free project status report template for Excel is a snapshot of the project that is great for communicating where you’re at and where you’re going. You have places to put milestones you’ve met, list key risks and issues.

Using ProjectManager for Issue Management

Now that you know the basic framework for creating an issue log, how do you manage project issues? An issue log is a great tool to have in your project management toolbox. It can help you manage both your team and stakeholders.

That’s because an issue log delivers more than just a resolution of the issue, but creates trust and satisfies your stakeholders that you’re handling the project promptly and properly. Stakeholders and your team will feel they’re being heard and these issues won’t impact the project.

You’ve already created the issue log, which is great. It should, at best, be a collaborative document, or even better, integrated with ProjectManager, an online project management tool. If you can share it online, so everyone has access to it. You’ve streamlined the process and made sure that no issue gets lost.

Kanban Boards as Issue Logs

The next step is logging in an issue once it’s been identified. You can do this online, where the person who first notes the issue has the responsibility to put it in the log. ProjectManager has online kanban boards that can track the issue.

When it’s first identified, there can be a column that collects the issue. Then that card, which is the issue, can be assigned to a point person who is responsible. Now the team knows to go to them and they know it’s their responsibility to log the issues as they arise.

Follow the protocol of the issue log we outlined above. After assigning someone to take on that issue as their own, they are responsible for working on a resolution and tracking the progress of that action through the course of solving the issue.

This project tracking features are why ProjectManager is so much more than an issue log. Not only can it assign an owner, who can collect documents directly to that task, as well as comment and @ team members for collaboration, but it also offers transparency to monitor the issue log. The final responsibility for the resolution of these issues doesn’t sit on the shoulders of those who are assigned to own it but on your own.

Monitoring Issues

Part of the monitoring process is assessing the impact of the issue and the actions in place to resolve it. Maybe you need to put all your resources on this one issue, but maybe that level of attention and effort is counterproductive. So, you must know what issues need to be escalated and which don’t.

Along those lines, you want to ensure your actions are right for the issue at hand. Maybe this issue can wait. Maybe it needs immediate attention. That, of course, can change, which is why monitoring and continual assessment are important. You can see how the ProjectManager dashboard lets you monitor your tasks in one simple view, so you can ensure that your issues are being addressed.

While a team member might have ownership of the issue, once a course of action is developed to address it and, hopefully, resolve the issue, it’s now up to you to make final approval before implementing. Then you must make sure the plan is in fact effective and resolving the issue. If it’s not, then it’s back to the drawing board. Last but not least, the best part is when the issue has been resolved. Now you can strike the issue from your issue log. It feels good, doesn’t it?

ProjectManager is online project management software that can help you better manage the issues in your project. You’re online and connected to your team, getting real-time data, which keeps you more on top of the issue and better equipped to resolve it. Try it out for yourself and see what it can do for you and your teams, with this free 30-day trial.

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The process of controlling management is essential for any business to remain viable. When you monitor with software and control the process of your manufacturing, you’re able to see what works and what isn’t working.

What Is Controlling Process in Business Management?

The controlling process in business management is when managers set, measure and refine their business operations and manage cost control.

By using a controlling process, a company can navigate changes to the supply chain, customer demand and other variables that impact a company’s livelihood. It’s a critical task in keeping any business solvent.

Through the process of controlling in management, a company can accurately tell if plans are moving in the right direction and are fully implemented. If those plans aren’t working and take the company off-track, they can right the ship and stay on course.

Project management software helps you measure performance. ProjectManager is software that does this in real time. You can see the difference between your planned and actual effort with ProjectManager’s live dashboard. The dashboard collects production data, automatically crunches the numbers and then displays the result in easy-to-read graphs and charts. Try ProjectManager today for free!

Who Is Involved in the Controlling Process?

A range of individuals and groups are involved in the controlling process, but the specific people involved can vary depending on the company’s size and structure. Usually, management such as the executive team, the CEO and the department managers are involved. They work to set the overall strategic goals and business targets, and are responsible for monitoring their team’s performance.

The finance department, including the CFO and financial analysts, is also involved as they help ensure the controlling process offers relevant and reliable information for strategic decision making and financial reporting. While not directly involved in controlling, employees across departments may contribute to this process by offering data related to their role, following established budgets or providing feedback.

Controlling Process Steps in Business Management

There is a five-step procedure for controlling processes that will help you set, measure and tweak your business activities—whether that’s production, packaging, delivery or another business process.

If you’re not applying a controlling process, then you’re not really managing your business processes. You can’t lead your workforce without controlling the process.

For organizational control that leads to fulfilling your company’s goals and strategic plans, follow these five steps:

1. Set Performance Standards

You need a goal for your business, but you also need guidance for your team to keep them working towards that goal. Without such standards, it’s possible that they’ll move away from the plan, whether intentionally or not.

Standards are like goals tasked to a specific department or team member. They must achieve these standards through cooperation, teamwork and a collaborative effort. To ensure these standards are being met, though, you must-have criteria to measure them by.

By setting up rules you can measure with, you can judge or rate performance to keep the results standard. This helps management understand how production is progressing, and whether it’s on track or needs adjustment. Having standards to base performance on means that work doesn’t have to stop to get a picture of how it’s progressing.

There are two groups of standards: tangible (or specific) and intangible (or abstract). The former is measurable; you can see it and count it. The latter cannot be seen nor counted. A tangible standard would be time, cost, profit, expenditure, output, etc. Intangible standards are a manager’s performance, a worker’s attitude and so forth.

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Status Report Template

Use this free Status Report Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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2. Measure Performance

Setting a standard makes it possible to measure performance using a control function. Through this measurement of performance, you can quickly catch and correct any deviation from the plan before it goes off-track and runs production into the ground.

Measurements are easier when dealing with tangible standards that can be seen and counted. This is naturally more difficult with intangible standards. By definition, intangible performance is difficult to measure in an information system, as you cannot quantify it.

One way to make up for this shortcoming is by looking at a manager’s performance through the eyes of their team. What is the team attitude like towards their work? Is morale high? How are communications between the team and the manager? Is the team loyal to each other, their manager and the company?

Although these are intangible standards, together they paint a picture of the manager’s performance. All of those questions speak to the ability of the manager to successfully manage their team. Draft the standard for measuring what teams do, what is their expected performance, etc. You can collect this data regularly by reports, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.

3. Compare Actual Performance Against Performance Standards

Once you have a baseline for how your teams are performing when manufacturing, packaging, delivering, etc., you can compare the actual to the planned performance and determine the extent of the deviation. This is called variance, or the difference between actual performance and goals. Schedules can be immensely helpful when it comes to analyzing variance.

ProjectManager has online Gantt charts that allow you to set concrete milestones and project phases, so you can see at a glance if you are ahead or behind schedule. Plus, the Gantt updates in real time as your team completes their work. Take a free trial and build a schedule in minutes.

The manager must look at this data and accept or reject the outcome. This depends on the deviation and the impact on the business. If everything is going as expected, that’s great, but it’s more likely that there will be deviation of some sort. It’s up to the manager to determine if that gap is one that can be ignored or acted on.

4. Analyze Deviations

This brings us to the next step: where you analyze data using the acceptable limits. If standards weren’t met, the manager must then figure out whether more control is required—or if maybe, the standard itself should be changed.

If there is a gap between planned and actual performance, the next step is figuring out what is causing it and what the extent of it is. Then, you have to determine how this deviation is impacting the business. If the difference is only a small one, then it’s probably okay to ignore it. But if the gap reflects gains, appointing workers, changing or repairing equipment and other critical issues, it must be addressed. A gap analysis template can help in that decision-making process.

5. Take Corrective Actions

Once you have analyzed the deviation and determined its cause, the manager will have to set up a plan in which corrective measures, critical point control and other means are used to resolve the issue. This is to reduce the deviation and ensure the standard is met. This might involve changes to processes and/or behaviors.

Some situations discovered in a controlling process might require corrective action to save the business, while others might just be a below-standard performance that needs correcting to improve processes and bring production back on schedule. Therefore, actions might be needed immediately because of the urgency.

Corrective actions include a variety of activities. For example, you might change how certain business operations are carried out. However, some operations and performances might not be able to change and may require more resources. For example, hiring more team members might be the solution to correct the deviation you’ve discovered.

It’s important that managers monitor and control the process from start to finish. That includes not only the controlling process but any actions planned to resolve the deviation or reset the standards. An understanding of the controlling process shows if plans are being met and, if not, what actions need to take place in order for them to be met.

How to Get Buy-in From Your Team for the Controlling Process

For the controlling process to be effective, the team needs to buy into it. This often revolves around focusing on communication, transparency and involvement. For example, the top management team can explain why certain controlling measures are put into place and how they benefit the overall business. When team members can understand how their work impacts the bigger picture, they are more likely to understand the importance of their work.

As performance standards are apparent in the controlling process, it’s ideal to share the results openly and honestly. This can help build trust and show those in the business that data is being used constructively.  Teams need the right training and support to hit their performance standards. Make sure they have the knowledge and skills to understand the controlling process, any relevant KPIs and how their work contributes to the bottom line. If needed, offer training on software or tools that can help with data collection and reporting.

Templates to Help the Control Process

Project management templates are one of the most helpful tools a project manager can utilize during the control process. Here are a handful that can help.

Quality Control Template

Download this free quality control template for Excel for a standardized way to establish and maintain production standards. It details quality assurance measures and methods of accountability to ensure the delivery of quality products.

Operating Budget Template

Cost control is integral to the control process. Use this free operating budget template for Excel to forecast revenue and expenses over a period. It helps map out the expected costs for the quarter or year ahead, resulting in a more accurate budget.

Corrective Action Plan Template

If plans aren’t moving in the right direction, a company should take action. Download this free corrective action plan template for Excel to outline and develop the action items that can correct errors, reduce risks and improve processes.

How ProjectManager Helps With the Control Process Steps

ProjectManager is onlind work management software that manages plans and monitors performance in real time to help managers make more insightful decisions. Multiple project views make it easy for hybrid teams to use the tool how they want, no matter where they are, what they do or their level of expertise.

Track Progress on Gantt Charts

Setting performance standards can be done on ProjectManager’s interactive Gantt charts. Milestones can be set, tasks assigned and priority and other tags added to better organize the standards. A baseline is set to capture the plan, which can then be used later to compare the actual performance with the standards and goals set. Then, the manager can share the Gantt with the team and stakeholders.

Measure Performance on Dashboards

Measuring actual performance is more accurate with ProjectManager’s cloud-based reporting software. It collects data in real time and displays them on the live dashboard, which also can be shared with stakeholders. Reports are a way to dig deeper into the data. Teams can deliver status reports to update their performance as they execute their tasks, and managers can generate reports on variance, workload, timesheets and more.

Manage Workload and Reallocate Resources

Resource management tools help you analyze and take corrective action. Workload is one of the standards that can slow down production if too few team members are tasked with too many tasks. ProjectManager’s color-coded chart shows you who is overallocated, and then you can reallocate resources right from the workload chart. Once the workload is balanced, production will increase as will team morale.

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps with controlling processes. It has features to help you plan, monitor and report on performance. Multiple project views make it accessible to anyone from management to team members. It’s perfect for hybrid teams looking to improve their work management. Try ProjectManager today!

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But even with the project evaluation process in place, managing a project successfully is not as simple as it sounds. Project managers need to keep track of costs, tasks and time during the entire project life cycle to make sure everything goes as planned. To do so, they utilize the project evaluation process and make use of project management software to help manage their team’s work in addition to planning and evaluating project performance.

What Is Project Evaluation?

Project evaluation is the process of measuring the success of a project, program or portfolio. This is done by gathering data about the project and using an evaluation method that allows evaluators to find performance improvement opportunities. Project evaluation is also critical to keep stakeholders updated on the project status and any changes that might be required to the budget or schedule.

Every aspect of the project such as costs, scope, risks or profitability is measured to determine if it’s proceeding as planned. If there are road bumps, this data can inform how projects can improve.

Basically, you’re asking the project a series of questions designed to discover what is working, what can be improved and whether the project is useful. Tools such as project dashboards and trackers help in the evaluation process by making key data readily available.

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Project Review Template

Use this free Project Review Template for Word to manage your projects better.

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The project evaluation process has been around as long as projects themselves. But when it comes to the science of project management, project evaluation can be broken down into three main types or methods: pre-project evaluation, ongoing evaluation and post-project evaluation. Let’s look at the project evaluation process, what it entails and how you can improve your technique.

Project Evaluation Criteria

The specific details of the project evaluation criteria vary from one project or one organization to another, depending on many factors such as the organization’s risk tolerance, project management maturity, strategic planning among many others.

In general terms, a project evaluation process goes over the project constraints including time, cost, scope, resources, risk and quality. In addition, organizations may add their own business goals, strategic objectives and other project metrics.

Project Evaluation Methods

There are three points in a project where evaluation is most needed. To approve and select and prioritize project proposals, to monitor the health of a project while it’s being executed and lastly, at the project closure phase to document lessons learned. While you can evaluate your project at any time, these are points where you should have the process officially scheduled.

1. Pre-Project Evaluation

The pre-project evaluation is the process of evaluating multiple project proposals during the project intake process, in which the project management office (PMO) of an organization and key project stakeholders establish a project selection and prioritization criteria to determine which of them have the best cost-benefit ratio and are better aligned with the larger strategic, operational and business objectives of the organization.

Related: Project Prioritization Matrix Template

In a sense, you’re also pre-evaluating your project when you write your project charter to pitch to the stakeholders. You cannot effectively plan, staff and control a new project if you’ve first not evaluated it. Pre-project evaluation is the only sure way you can determine the effectiveness of the project before executing it.

2. Formative Project Evaluation

This type of project evaluation is conducted during a project’s implementation instead of at its conclusion. The main goal is to offer ongoing feedback and insights that can help improve the project’s design, delivery and effectiveness. Formative evaluation is beneficial as it helps identify and mitigate potential risks early in the project. It also ensures that project resources are used optimally.

3. Process Evaluation

Project process evaluation focuses on looking at how a project is implemented and delivered instead of focusing solely on its outcomes or goals. It looks at the project’s operations, activities and procedures to identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. As a result, teams can better identify and address implementation changes and streamline processes to boost efficiency. Process evaluation can also result in improved communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

4. Participatory Evaluation

This project evaluation process actively involves stakeholders, especially the intended beneficiaries, in all stages of the evaluation process. It emphasizes collaboration, empowerment and learning to shift the focus from external evaluation to internal reflection and action. Stakeholders are more invested in the project as their needs and priorities are addressed. It also fosters a sense of trust between all parties involved in the project.

5. Ongoing Project Evaluation

To make sure your project is proceeding as planned and hitting all of the scheduling and budget milestones you’ve set, it’s crucial that you constantly monitor and report on your work in real-time. Only by using project metrics can you measure the success of your project and whether or not you’re meeting the project’s goals and objectives. It’s strongly recommended that you use project management dashboards and tracking tools for ongoing evaluation.

Related: Free Project Dashboard Template for Excel

It’s also important to consider what enterprise environmental factors are affecting the project’s progress and develop strategies to mitigate their effects.

6. Summative Project Evaluation

The summative project evaluation process helps assess the overall effectiveness and impact of a project, program or educational intervention once it’s concluded. Think of it as a final assessment that strives to determine whether the project’s intended goals and objectives were achieved. The findings from a summative evaluation can also help inform future project decisions and ensure accountability.

7. Goals-Based Evaluation

This systematic approach to project evaluation assesses a project’s success by comparing its outcomes to its pre-defined goals and objectives. This method focuses on clarity and measurability to ensure that the evaluation focuses on what the project aimed to achieve. By emphasizing measurable outcomes in the project, it makes it easier to assess project success. It’s ideal to use in projects with a defined, measurable scope and where accountability and outcome measurement are critical.

8. Outcome Evaluation

As the name suggests, outcome evaluation focuses on assessing the actual changes or effects that a project has produced in its target environment. Rather than simply measuring outputs such as the number of participants trained, it looks at the impact of those outputs, such as changes in knowledge or behavior. It aims to understand the “so what?” of a project to understand what difference it made. This is another project evaluation method that can improve future projects and programs.

9. Post-Project Evaluation

Think of this as a postmortem. Post-project evaluation is when you go through the project’s paperwork, interview the project team and principles and analyze all relevant data so you can understand what worked and what went wrong. Only by developing this clear picture can you resolve issues in upcoming projects.

Post-project evaluation is especially important for project-based organizations with multiple projects in their portfolio, as lessons learned from one project can be used in upcoming projects and programs.

Free Project Review Template for Word

The project review template for Word is the perfect way to evaluate your project, whether it’s an ongoing project evaluation or post-project. It takes a holistic approach to project evaluation and covers such areas as goals, risks, staffing, resources and more. Download yours today.

Project Evaluation Steps

Regardless of when you choose to run a project evaluation, the process always has four phases: planning, implementation, completion and dissemination of reports.

1. Planning

The ultimate goal of this step is to create a project evaluation plan, a document that explains all details of your organization’s project evaluation process. When planning for a project evaluation, it’s important to identify the stakeholders and what their short-and-long-term goals are. You must make sure that your goals and objectives for the project are clear, and it’s critical to have settled on criteria that will tell you whether these goals and objects are being met.

So, you’ll want to write a series of questions to pose to the stakeholders. These queries should include subjects such as the project framework, best practices and metrics that determine success.

By including the stakeholders in your project evaluation plan, you’ll receive direction during the course of the project while simultaneously developing a relationship with the stakeholders. They will get progress reports from you throughout the project life cycle, and by building this initial relationship, you’ll likely earn their belief that you can manage the project to their satisfaction.

2. Implementation

While the project is running, you must monitor all aspects to make sure you’re meeting the schedule and budget. One of the things you should monitor during the project is the percentage completed. This is something you should do when creating status reports and meeting with your team. To make sure you’re on track, hold the team accountable for delivering timely tasks and maintain baseline dates to know when tasks are due.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on quality. It doesn’t matter if you deliver the project within the allotted time frame if the product is poor. Maintain quality reviews, and don’t delegate that responsibility. Instead, take it on yourself.

Maintaining a close relationship with the project budget is just as important as tracking the schedule and quality. Keep an eye on costs. They will fluctuate throughout the project, so don’t panic. However, be transparent if you notice a need growing for more funds. Let your steering committee know as soon as possible, so there are no surprises.

3. Completion

When you’re done with your project, you still have work to do. You’ll want to take the data you gathered in the evaluation and learn from it so you can fix problems that you discovered in the process and implement those solutions on future projects, programs and portfolios. Figure out the short- and long-term impacts of what you learned in the evaluation.

4. Reporting and Disseminating

Once the evaluation is complete, you need to record the results. To do so, you’ll create a project evaluation report, a document that is usually stored by the project management office of the organization as it provides lessons for the future. Deliver your report to your stakeholders to keep them updated on the project’s progress.

How are you going to disseminate the report? There might be a protocol for this already established in your organization. Perhaps the stakeholders prefer a meeting to get the results face-to-face. Or maybe they prefer PDFs with easy-to-read charts and graphs. Make sure that you know your audience and tailor your report to them.

Benefits of Project Evaluation

Project evaluation is always advisable and it can bring a wide array of benefits to your organization. As noted above, there are many aspects that can be measured through the project evaluation process. It’s up to you and your stakeholders to decide the most critical factors to consider. Here are some of the main benefits of implementing a project evaluation process.

• Better Project Management: Project evaluation helps you easily find areas of improvement when it comes to managing your costs, tasks, resources and time.
• Improves Team performance: Project evaluation allows you to keep track of your team’s performance and increases accountability.
• Better Project Planning: Helps you compare your project baseline against actual project performance for better planning and estimating.
• Helps with Stakeholder Management: Having a good relationship with stakeholders is key to success as a project manager. Creating a project evaluation report is very important to keep them updated.
• Benefits Management: Accurate assessment of benefits generated by the project

How ProjectManager Improves the Project Evaluation Process

To take your project evaluation to the next level, you’ll want ProjectManager, an online work management tool with live dashboards that deliver real-time data so you can monitor what’s happening now as opposed to what happened yesterday.

With ProjectManager’s real-time dashboard, project evaluation is measured in real-time to keep you updated. The numbers are then displayed in colorful graphs and charts. Filter the data to show the data you want or to drill down to get a deeper picture. These graphs and charts can also be shared with a keystroke. You can track workload and tasks, because your team is updating their status in real-time, wherever they are and at whatever time they complete their work.

Project evaluation with ProjectManager’s real-time dashboard makes it simple to go through the evaluation process during the evolution of the project. It also provides valuable data afterward. The project evaluation process can even be fun, given the right tools. Feel free to use our automated reporting tools to quickly build traditional project reports, allowing you to improve both the accuracy and efficiency of your evaluation process.

Related Project Closure Content

The project closure stage is a very important step in the project life cycle because it’s when the project team and stakeholders will determine how successful the project was by closely inspecting the deliverables and ensuring whether the success criteria was met. Here are some blogs, templates and guides that can be helpful during this project phase.

• Free PMO Templates for Excel and Word
• Lessons Learned Template
• Project Closure Template
• Project Financial Management: Managing Project Financials
• 5 Steps to Project Closure (Checklist Included)
• What Is Post-Implementation Review in Project Management?
• 10 Steps for Successful Project Completion (Templates Included)
• ¿Qué es la Evaluación de Proyectos?

ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that has a suite of powerful tools for every phase of your project, including live dashboards and reporting tools. Our software collects project data in real-time and is constantly being fed information by your team as they progress through their tasks. See how monitoring, evaluation and reporting can be streamlined by taking a free 30-day trial today!

The post Project Evaluation Process: Definition, Methods & Steps appeared first on ProjectManager.

Of course, there are many indicators of project success, but what do you need to be measuring while the project is in motion?

At various points during the project, you want to evaluate five points: schedule, quality, cost, stakeholder satisfaction and performance against the business case. You should be doing this informally anyway. A formal project evaluation is of use during the end of a phase or stage as it can give you a clear indication of how the project is performing against the original estimates. This information can then be used to grant (or withhold) approval from moving on with the next chunk of work.

Let’s look at the seven items you should be evaluating.

1. Schedule Baseline

Project management success is often determined by whether or not you kept to the original project schedule. Experienced project managers know how hard that is, but it’s a little bit easier if you continually evaluate your progress as you go. You’ll update your project schedule regularly – I recommend at least weekly. The schedule evaluation is something you can do more formally at the end of the stage or phase, or as part of a monthly report to your senior stakeholder group or Project Board. It’s easy to update your project schedule if you build it on an online Gantt chart, where tasks and deadlines are made into visual timelines.

Look at your major milestones and check if they still fall on the same dates as you originally agreed. Work out the slippage, if any, and how much of an impact this will have on your overall project timescales.

Related: 10 Free Project Report Templates

2. Quality Assurance

The end of a project phase is a good time for a quality review. You can check both the quality of your project management practices – are you following the change management process every time and so on – and also the deliverables.

A quality review can evaluate whether what you are doing meets the standards set out in your quality plans. Best find out now before the project goes too far, as it might be too late to do anything about it then.

It helps to have project management software to make sure you’re checking off everything you need to when reviewing quality. ProjectManager has a sheet view that leaves others in the dust. More than just a to-do list, our tool can assign tasks, attach files and even show you the percentage complete for each item on your quality review. Our cloud-based tool connects everyone on your team in real time, which facilitates the quality review process. Have a quality tool to review the quality of your project. Take a free trial of ProjectManager today.

3. Project Budget

Many executives would rate cost management as one of their highest priorities on a project, so evaluating how the project is performing financially is crucial. Compare your current actual spend to your project budget at this point. If there are variances, look to explain them. You can use a project dashboard to check your actual spend in real time.

You’ll also want to look forward and re-forecast the budget to the end of the project. Compare that to your original estimate, too and make sure it is close enough for your management team to feel that the work is on track. If your forecasts go up too much, it is a sign that your spending will be out of control by the end of the project – again, something it is better to know about now.

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Project Budget Template

Use this free Project Budget Template to manage your projects better.

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4. Stakeholder Satisfaction

Your wider team – your stakeholders – are essential in getting much of the work done, so it’s worth checking in with them. Find out how they are feeling about the project right now and what you could be doing differently.

This is a difficult measure to document statistically, although there’s nothing to stop you from asking them for a rating out of 10. Even if you are evaluating their satisfaction subjectively, it is still a useful exercise. If you notice that stakeholders are not fully supportive, you can put plans in place to engage them thoroughly to try to influence their behavior.

5. Performance to Business Case

Finally, you’ll want to go back to the business case and see what you originally agreed upon. How is your project shaping up? Check that the benefits are still realistic and that the business problem this project was designed to solve does still exist. It happens – project teams work on initiatives that sound great, but by the time they are finished the business environment has moved on and the project is redundant. No one bothered to check the business case during the project’s life cycle and so no one realized that the work was no longer needed.

Don’t work on something that nobody wants! Check the business case regularly and evaluate it in light of the current business objectives.

You can add other items to this list. In fact, it should reflect what is important to you and your team – you should be evaluating things that matter, so feel free to add extra elements or ditch some of the ones that you are less worried about.

6. Return on Investment (ROI)

This is a powerful tool to measure project success as it quantifies the financial benefits generated compared to the project’s costs. First, let’s define how to calculate the ROI percentage.

ROI = (Net profit / total investment) x 100

The higher the ROI, the more successful the project. Before the project begins, establish baseline metrics for key performance indicators (KPIs), as this allows for a more accurate comparison when the project is finished. Once it’s over, measure the financial benefits such as increased revenue, reduced costs or improved efficiency. If there’s a positive ROI, the project generated a profit, while a negative ROI means the project resulted in a loss.

7. Long-Term Project Impact

A project’s long-term impact can also determine its success. Think beyond the immediate impact of the deliverables and consider the lasting effects and value generated over time. Projects with long-term impact can enhance the organization’s reputation and credibility.

Look at project metrics that outline the project’s sustained influence, such as increased market share over several years, revenue growth, improved customer retention rates or increased employee productivity. Ideally, there will be a tracking system in place that can track these metrics over 3-5 years.

Templates to Help You Measure Project Success

Project success should be tangible, so teams need the right tools to help capture data along the way. Here are some top tools that can outline whether a project was successful.

KPI Dashboard Template

A KPI dashboard template offers a centralized and visual representation of critical project metrics such as costs, budgets, workload, labor costs, equipment utilization and more. All key project KPIs are gathered into a single dashboard to make data and trends easier to understand. Project managers and key stakeholders can reference these dashboards throughout projects to spot issues before they become detrimental and see what in the project needs to be changed.

Gantt Chart Template

A Gantt chart is one of the most essential tools to help keep project schedules on track. Another tool to measure project success is a Gantt chart template. It helps visually track project tasks and outlines the duration of the project. The visual representation of the Gantt chart’s project timeline helps spot task overlaps and potential bottlenecks. From there, make adjustments to the schedule to keep the project on track.

Stakeholder Analysis Template

A stakeholder analysis template is also integral to measuring project success as it has the details teams need to better communicate with stakeholders. As stakeholders have a vested interest in the project, it’s important to understand their expectations in order to manage them and give them the information they need throughout the project. The template has space for the project overview, basic stakeholder information, project information and commitment level.

Project Closure Template

A project isn’t successful if it isn’t closed out properly. Use a project closure template to formally finalize and close a project, capturing the essential project information for future reference. This can include general project information, deliverable acceptance, planned vs. actual budget information, resources, stakeholder satisfaction and a final project report. Reference this data as needed in future projects and use it to determine if the project was successful.

Perform a Project Evaluation at the End

When your project is over you’ll want to carry out a full and final evaluation. This could be as part of a lessons learned review, but typically it is different. A lessons learned review is where all the project stakeholders comment on what worked and what didn’t. You take away key messages and tasks to improve how projects are delivered in the future. It’s an essential part of project closure, but it isn’t a formal evaluation. You get a lot of feedback, anecdotes and stories but even the most structured lessons learned workshop generally gives you narrative rather than statistics.

Related: Lessons Learned Template

A project evaluation is about figures. The stories form part of it too, but a smaller part. During a project evaluation you look at:

• Schedule
• Quality
• Cost
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Performance to business case

Sound familiar? Yes, it’s the same list of topics that you evaluate as you go through the project. Anything that you are going to be evaluating at the end should also be assessed during the project’s life cycle, or you risk not hitting the targets you have set for yourself.

You can include your final end-of-project evaluation in your project closure document. Note down how close you were to your original timescales, budget and quality targets. Add a few sentences to describe whether your evaluations showed that stakeholders were satisfied with the end result and also if the project met the needs described in the business case.

Software Tools for Managing Project Success

If you need help working out what’s important, project management software can help with tracking. ProjectManager has a live dashboard to monitor progress and performance. Don’t use inferior tools that make you set up your dashboard. Ours is ready to use the moment you log on. It also captures real-time data for more insightful decision-making. We calculate costs, time and more for an instant status report.

How to Use ProjectManager to Measure Success

ProjectManager is an online project management software that gives you numerous tools to track the success of your projects. Our most helpful, and visual, tools for measuring success are our real-time dashboards. Each project or project portfolio has a dashboard that displays key metrics in real time. That means that as your team updates their tasks, your project dashboard updates right before your eyes. This is great for giving stakeholders and team members a live look at your project progress.

One-Click Project Reports to Reflect Progress

Of course, it’s hard to beat a status report when it comes to measuring your success. Status reports are a staple in project management for getting a detailed look at how your project plan is unfolding.

ProjectManager lets you create status reports, and dozens of other project reports, with just one click. This can save managers so much time when it comes to paperwork, giving them more time to make impactful project decisions. These reports are key to performing a proper project evaluation as well, which is critical to see if your project really was a success after all.

Project evaluations are largely about having the right data, so you need a project management tool that can allow you to monitor your project throughout the lifecycle of your project. ProjectManager has a suite of dashboard, task, resource and reporting tools that help make evaluating your project fast and simple. Start your free trial today.

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Project management software that’s collaborative and offers unlimited file storage, such as ProjectManager, is a given. Our tool can organize your documents and make them accessible to the project team on any of our multiple project views. For example, the list view allows teams to share files and comment on tasks in real time to foster better communication. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Is the Meaning of PMIS?

A project management information system (PMIS) is how a project’s information is organized. It collects and uses project information through one or more software applications. These programs help project managers plan, execute and close their projects and allow them to organize the flood of information so they aren’t drowning in data.

There are different types of PMIS software, but most share feature sets that include tools for scheduling, work authorization, information collection and distribution, etc. Some also have automated gathering and reporting on key performance indicators (KPIs), while others are simply a collection of files.

What Is a PMIS Used For?

A PMIS is made to support all aspects of project management, including the information that’s necessary to monitor or collect. This includes integration management, project scope management, project cost management, project time management, project quality management, project communications management, project risk management, project procurement management and project stakeholder management.

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Essential Features of a PMIS

That’s a lot of information to keep track of, and when managing a project, it’s crucial to be able to immediately pluck the required information from all that data. A PMIS is an important tool that gives you instant access to the signal in the noise. The information is also critical for future projects to help reduce risk, improve efficiencies and estimate costs.

If a PMIS captures all project data and stores it in an organized way, it must also be retrievable, searchable, categorizable, shareable and analyzable. To achieve this, a typical PMIS has a series of tools.

• Project Scheduling: Computes early and late schedules, slack times and the critical path
• Project Resource Management: Includes resource loading, leveling, allocation, etc.
• Project Budgeting: Costs associated with individual tasks for more accurate budget estimation and generation.
• Project Tracking: Analyze and control cost and performance, update existing plans as actual against planned data changes and provide what-if scenarios for the project manager.
• Project Reports: Creation of graphs, reports and charts of collected and analyzed data that can be shared with stakeholders and team members.
• Integrations: Some PMIS will access data from different projects for multi-project analysis, integrating with other systems, such as payroll, inventory, etc. The easier a PMIS is to use, the less time and money required to train.

What Is a PMIS Report?

A PMIS report is a document that a Project Management Information System (PMIS) generates to provide data on project performance. It delves into various aspects of a project to help project managers and stakeholders identify potential issues, monitor progress and make informed decisions.

Typically, a PMIS report contains information on the project status such as the overall project health, key milestones, deliverables and percentage completion of tasks. It also compares planned vs. actual start and finish dates, Gantt chart visualizations and critical path analysis. Other areas of a PMIS report may include data on cost performance, resource utilization, risk management, issue tracking, quality control, change control and communication. The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of project performance and how it aligns with strategic goals.

How Does PMIS Work Throughout the Project Life Cycle?

A PMIS has different functions depending on the phase of the project. At a basic level, a PMIS should offer the possibility to track your project scope, time and costs. A robust PMIS should include a wide variety of project management software features you can use as you go through your project life cycle.

ProjectManager has advanced resource management, time tracking, work management and project management features that you need from a PMIS plus real-time collaboration features, dashboards, reporting and more. Here’s how you can use an advanced PMIS to manage your project life cycle.

Project Initiation

During the initiation phase, a project manager uses a PMIS to establish a preliminary budget including cost estimates and resources. A PMIS used in conjunction with other tools can help schedule the project. In terms of approval, a PMIS helps to define the scope of work, assists with preparing the bid and can be used when presenting data to decision-makers.

Project Planning

When planning a project, PMIS helps with scheduling details including task and critical path analysis. It supports cost management planning including WBS analysis and integration of control processes. PMIS also proves beneficial to the project manager when resource planning in terms of availability and level. It can also help establish a baseline for project scope, schedule and cost.

Project Execution

Once the project has been executed, the PMIS collects, organizes and stores data as it comes in from the project team. This data can then be compared to the baseline projections. The PMIS helps with cost and schedule forecasts to determine if changes are required mid-project. Materials management, cost collection, performance measurement and, of course, reporting are all supported by PMIS.

Project Monitoring & Control

A PMIS should have all the cost management, resource planning, task management and time tracking features you need to make sure the project execution is going as planned and nothing affects your project schedule or budget. In case an issue does affect your project plan, you can use a PMIS to find all the information you need to mitigate that risk and adjust your project plan.

Project Closure

Especially when closing out a project, a PMIS is a great help. It helps review requirements to make sure the project has met all its goals and objectives. It also organizes the information collected over the course of the project for performance review, productivity analysis, final reports and keeps an archive of historical data for future projects.

PMIS Example: A Construction PMIS

Let’s look into a construction PMIS as an example. Let’s say there’s a new commercial office building that was built in October of 2024. The construction PMIS may include sections such as the following.

Project Status Summary: On track with minor schedule variances

Key Milestones

• Foundation completion: October 8
• Structural steel erection: 80% complete (delayed by 2 days due to steel delivery)
• Exterior wall framing: 20% complete

Issues

• Steel delivery delay (resolved with alternate supplier)
• Minor delay in concrete pour due to unexpected rain (mitigated by extended work hours)

Schedule Performance

Planned vs. actual

• Structural steel erection, planned finish date Oct. 23, actual finish Oct. 26
• Exterior wall framing, planned start Oct. 15, actual start Oct. 16

Schedule variance

• Structural steel erection: +3 days
• Exterior wall framing: +1 day
• Critical path: Structured steel erection, exterior wall framing, electrical rough-in are currently on the critical path
• Include a Gantt chart that shows planned vs. actual timelines for each task

Cost Performance

Budget vs. actual

• Total budget: $10,000,000
• Total actual cost: $6,500,000
• Budget remaining: $3,500,000

Cost variance

• Steel deliver delay: +$50,000 (premium for alternate supplier)
• Concrete pour delay: +$10,000 (extended work hours)

Earned value analysis

• Planned value (PV): $6,800,000
• Earned value (EV): $6,500,000
• Schedule variance (SV): -$300,000
• Cost variance (CV): -$10,000

Resource Utilization

Labor

• Steelworkers: 95% utilization
• Concrete workers: 100% utilization (due to extended hours)

Equipment

• Crane: 80% utilization
• Concrete pumps: 90% utilization

Materials

• Steel: on-site inventory sufficient for next week
• Concrete: deliveries on schedule

Risk Management

• Identified risks: severe weather (mitigation: weather monitoring, contingency plans)
• Material price fluctuations: low risk (mitigation: locked-in supplier contracts)
• Realized risk: steel delivery delay, rain delay
• Risk mitigation status: steel delivery (resolved), rain delay (resolved)

Issues

• Steel delivery delay
• Status: resolved
• Impact: 3-day project delay, $50,000 cost increase
• Action: alternate supplier sourced

Rain delay

• Status: resolved
• Impact: 1 day delay, $10,000 cost increase
• Action: extended work hours

Communication

• Weekly project meetings with stakeholders
• Daily site progress reports distributed to the team
• Client informed of steel delivery delay and mitigation plan

This is a simplified version of a real-world construction PMIS report. In reality, it would delve into more granular data and visualizations, but it illustrates the core components and how they track and maintain a construction project.

Advantages of Using an Online PMIS

While there are manual project management information systems, the benefits of using an online or cloud-based system are numerous. With an online project management information system, the speed, capacity, efficiency, economy, accuracy and the ability to handle complex projects are supported. Of all these benefits, speed is the most practical.

Related: 20 Free Project Management Templates for Excel

Once the data is collected, it can then be adjusted to reflect the results a project manager needs with great speed and accuracy. A manual program is never going to match that nor can it create and revise project documents, plans, schedules or budgets as quickly. What once took days or longer is now completed in a matter of seconds.

Project managers and their organizations can store large amounts of data with a PMIS. That data is also easily accessed, prioritized and summarized as needed. And unlike a manual system which is large and requires many support personnel, an online PMIS requires far less support and space.

With these factors, there’s also a cost-benefit. The cost advantage of digital over a manual PMIS is usually significant, especially when considering storage and processing. And if inputs are correct, the chance of errors greatly diminishes with a cloud-based PMIS.

Try ProjectManager as Your PMIS

ProjectManager is project management software with the features to make a great PMIS. The real-time dashboard gives an up-to-date view of project metrics, crunching numbers for you and creating vivid and easy-to-read charts and graphs that can be printed out for presentations or shared digitally. They can also be filtered to reflect just the data you need to show to your team or stakeholder.

Unlimited Project File Storage

Because the software is cloud-based, there’s a great deal of file store to archive your documents, images and other files. Now they’re all in one place, which keeps them safe, organized and accessible when you want them.

Efficient Task Management

Communications between team members are also saved, but they’re not on email or lost in a long text narrative, both of which can waste valuable time searching for the right piece of information. Instead, with ProjectManager, those conversations are organized at the task level using our task management tools, including attaching the relevant documents, so everyone knows where to find them.

PMIS is essential to manage the massive amounts of data that swarm around every project. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that has the features a project manager needs to collect, organize, analyze and archive all that information. It’s easy to use and the whole team can collaborate. What are you waiting for? Try ProjectManager for free with this 30-day trial.

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To understand the importance of a building condition report, we’ll first define it, show who makes it and when in the commercial real estate cycle it’s done. We’ll show what should be included, illustrate how it works with a property condition example and even include a free downloadable template to get you started.

What Is a Property Condition Report?

A property condition report is a document that assesses the physical condition of a property. It outlines the current state of the building’s structure, systems (such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning or HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc.) and other relevant features like roofing, foundation and exterior elements. It’s typically prepared for property buyers, investors or lenders to assess a property’s overall condition and potential future repair needs.

It’s important to understand the relationship between a property condition report and a property condition assessment. The latter is a thorough property evaluation, focusing on its physical aspects and is usually done for commercial real estate properties. The process involves detailed building inspections by qualified professionals, who examine the condition of the building, identify any defects or issues and estimate the cost of necessary repairs or upgrades. The PCA typically informs purchasing decisions, property management strategies and investment planning.

A project condition survey is a more specific type of assessment, often associated with a planned construction or renovation project. This survey identifies the current state of a property to inform upcoming work, including structural issues, design considerations or regulatory compliance. It’s common in situations where a building is about to undergo significant renovations or development.

These differ in scope; a PCA report looks broadly at a property’s condition from a maintenance and longevity perspective, while a project condition survey focuses more on aspects that need to be addressed during a particular project or renovation. The purpose is also different, with a PCA report informing property investment and operational decisions. A project condition survey supports the planning and execution of construction or renovation projects.

A property condition report may be created after either of these processes, depending on the context, whether for general due diligence (PCA report) or to guide a renovation or project (project condition survey). Of course, these processes and reports are at the end of the project, when the build is all but complete. To get to that phase requires construction project management software.

ProjectManager is award-winning construction project and portfolio management software with multiple planning tools that set up a project for successful completion. General contractors can schedule tasks, resources and costs on robust Gantt charts, which can link all four types of task dependencies. That reduces delays and cost overruns. The Gantt chart can also be filtered to show the critical path without complex and time-consuming calculations. Then, set a baseline to monitor planned against actual effort in real time to keep the project on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Who Makes the Property Condition Report?

Now that we understand what a property condition report is and the various processes that can lead to it, let’s explore the professionals responsible for creating it. Here’s a list with a short explanation of who they are.

• Professional Inspectors: These licensed home or building inspectors specialize in property evaluations. They are trained to evaluate the conditions of buildings, including structural elements, systems and the overall state of the property.
• Engineering or Architecture Firms: These are used for larger or more complex properties requiring structural assessments. Architects, in some cases, may produce property condition reports, especially when the property involves complex designs or construction elements, or if the report is needed for a planned renovation. Structural and mechanical engineers may create a property condition report if it focuses on specific systems, like HVAC or electrical systems.
• Commercial Real Estate Consultants: For due diligence in real estate transactions, these professionals often have expertise in evaluating commercial properties from an investment, leasing and operational perspective. They may prepare a property condition report to provide recommendations about a property’s condition, potential investment value and necessary repairs. They typically rely on third-party specialists (e.g., engineers, inspectors) for detailed inspections but can provide an overall strategic view.
• Facility Managers: When used for internal property management, facility managers are responsible for upkeeping buildings and managing maintenance operations. They often have in-depth knowledge of the building’s systems and condition due to their regular involvement in its maintenance. A facility manager might create a property condition report, particularly for properties they oversee, as they have detailed knowledge of the building’s ongoing issues, repair history and anticipated maintenance.
• Maintenance Teams: Maintenance teams, though more involved in the repair work, may help create a property condition report by documenting their observations of the building’s systems and structure. However, they generally aren’t the primary creators of the report, as it requires a broader, detailed evaluation that often involves external inspectors or experts in areas like structural integrity and safety.

When to Make a Property Condition Report

We’ve already explained how a couple of processes trigger the creation of a property condition report, but more situations call for them. Below is a short list of when a report is generated and why.

• Before buying or selling a property: A property condition report should be created before a property is bought or sold to help both parties understand the current property’s condition. For buyers, it provides insights into potential repair costs and helps negotiate the sale price. For sellers, it offers transparency and helps identify any issues affecting the property’s value.
• For real estate due diligence: When assessing a property for investment, financing or leasing, a property condition report is essential to evaluate the property’s condition and avoid unforeseen costs. This due diligence process ensures that investors and lenders are fully aware of any structural or system-related problems that could impact the investment.
• During routine property maintenance: For ongoing property management, having a property condition report as part of routine maintenance can help track the property’s condition over time. Regular reports allow property owners and managers to stay ahead of necessary repairs, ensuring the building remains safe and well-maintained and avoiding costly emergency fixes later.
• Before major renovations or upgrades: A property condition report is useful before starting renovations or upgrades to assess the current state of the property and ensure all areas are addressed in the planning process. It helps identify potential challenges, such as structural issues or outdated systems, that may affect the renovation timeline and budget.
• For insurance or risk assessment: Insurance companies may require a property condition report to assess the property’s condition before providing coverage or determining premiums. It also helps with risk assessment by identifying vulnerabilities that could lead to accidents, damage, or loss, helping owners manage and mitigate risks appropriately.

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Property Condition Report Template

Use this free Property Condition Report Template for Word to manage your projects better.

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What Should Be Included in a Property Condition Report?

A property condition report typically includes several key elements that provide a comprehensive overview of the property’s condition. Here’s a breakdown of what to include.

General Property Information

This section provides essential details about the property, such as its full address, type (e.g., residential, commercial) and size (square footage). It also includes the construction date, giving context for the building’s age, which can influence its condition. The inspection date is recorded to ensure the report reflects the most current assessment. If applicable, it also includes information about the property owner or manager.

• Property address and location
• Property type (residential, commercial, industrial)
• Inspection date and inspector’s details
• Owner or client information

Exterior Assessment

The exterior assessment examines the outside elements of the property. It looks at the condition of the roof, foundation, walls, siding and windows to check for any wear or damage. Roofing issues, foundation cracks or problems with exterior materials can indicate larger structural problems. The condition of driveways, walkways and landscaping is also assessed, especially regarding drainage or any potential risks to the property from the exterior environment.

• Roof condition (material, damage, leaks)
• Walls, siding and foundation integrity
• Windows and doors (functionality, sealing, damage)
• Driveway, walkways and drainage system
• Landscaping and exterior structures (fences, sheds, decks)

Interior Assessment

This section of the property condition report focuses on the inside of the building, covering floors, walls, ceilings, doors, and windows. It includes inspecting flooring materials (such as carpet, tile or wood) and walls for any visible damage like cracks, stains or signs of water damage. It also examines the functionality of interior doors and windows, as well as the condition of lighting, electrical fixtures and plumbing systems (e.g., sinks, toilets, and pipes) to ensure everything is in working order.

• Walls, ceilings and flooring conditions
• Windows, doors and locks functionality
• Stairs, railings and hallways
• Presence of mold, pests or water damage

Structural and Mechanical Systems

Here, the property condition report evaluates the building’s core systems—HVAC, electrical, and plumbing. It looks at the age and condition of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, checking for functionality and efficiency. The electrical system is checked to ensure safety, with an inspection of the electrical panel, circuit breakers, and wiring. Plumbing is also reviewed for any leaks, water pressure issues or potential pipe problems. Lastly, the structural integrity of the building is examined, including foundation issues, cracks in load-bearing walls and other signs of significant structural wear.

• Foundation, basement or crawl space condition
• Electrical system (wiring, outlets, breaker panel)
• Plumbing system (leaks, water pressure, drainage)
• HVAC system (heating, cooling, ventilation)

Appliances and Fixtures

If the property includes appliances like refrigerators, dishwashers, or ovens, this section assesses their condition and functionality. Similarly, the condition of fixtures like lighting, bathroom fittings and kitchen cabinetry is reviewed. This ensures that the equipment included in the sale or lease is in proper working order and helps buyers or tenants understand what they can expect in terms of appliances and fixtures.

• Kitchen appliances (stove, refrigerator, dishwasher)
• Bathroom fixtures (toilets, sinks, showers)
• Water heater and laundry equipment

Safety and Compliance

Safety and regulatory compliance are crucial aspects of any property condition report. This section checks that fire safety systems, such as smoke detectors and emergency exits, are in place and working. It also examines whether the property adheres to local building codes, especially for any renovations or structural changes made over time. For commercial properties, accessibility standards (like ADA compliance) are considered. Additionally, the report checks for hazardous materials (e.g., asbestos or lead paint) that could pose health risks.

• Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
• Fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems
• Security systems (alarms, locks, cameras)
• Compliance with local building codes

Observed Issues and Recommendations

This section of the property condition report details any problems or issues found during the inspection. It describes each identified issue, from minor wear and tear to major structural or system failures. Alongside these observations, the report includes recommendations for repairs, replacements or improvements. The severity of each issue is often assessed, and recommendations for prioritizing repairs are provided to help the property owner or buyer manage the necessary work.

• Deficiencies and potential hazards
• Immediate repairs needed vs. long-term maintenance
• Estimated costs for repairs (if applicable)

Photos and Supporting Documentation

To support the written findings, photos are included to visually document significant issues, such as cracks in the foundation or water damage in the ceilings. These images help clarify the property’s condition and provide evidence for the reported problems. Supporting documents, such as previous maintenance schedule records, inspection reports or building permits, may also be included to provide additional context and a history of the property’s condition.

• Images of key areas, damage or concerns
• Reference to prior inspection reports (if available)

Property Condition Report Template

That’s a lot of information to cover for the property condition report. To make it easier and less likely that any major information is left out, download our free property condition report template for Word.

The free template takes all the sections of the report into account and explains what needs to be in that section. This customizable template allows users to delete our directions and add the information, which can be shared with the property owner.

Property Condition Report Example

To better understand how a property condition report works in the real world, we’ve added a report that’s used to inspect the condition of a building that a hotel chain is purchasing to convert into another one of their locations. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve condensed the elements outlined above into a simpler format.

The property condition report captures all the specific information that pertains to this site. It’s formatted like the free template that interested readers can download, which makes it clear to follow to understand how the report is written.

How ProjectManager Helps With Construction Project Management

Examples and templates are great, but when working in construction, general contractors, subcontractors and their crews need more efficient and effective tools. Construction project management software is designed to complete the project correctly. That way, when a property condition report is made, everything will meet the property owner’s expectations. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with multiple project views that allow general contractors to schedule on Gantt charts. Those plans are then shared across the software, which allows teams to execute their work on kanban boards and task lists, while stakeholders get a monthly overview with the calendar view.

Robust Resource Management and Cost Tracking Features

One way to ensure that construction projects are delivered on schedule and avoid cost overruns is by managing resources. When onboarding teams, general contractors can set their availability, including PTO, vacation and global holidays, as well as skill sets, which helps make assigning easier. Then use the color-coded workload chart to see resource allocation across all projects. From there, managers can see who is overallocated or underutilized and balance their workload to keep everyone working at capacity and avoiding burnout. There’s a team page that summarizes team activity on a daily or weekly basis, which can be filtered by priority, progress and more. Plus, secure online timesheets streamline payroll and provide a window into labor costs to track and keep to the budget.

Real-Time Construction Project Management Dashboards

Monitoring progress and performance is also essential to deliver a successful construction project. Once the baseline is set on the Gantt chart, our software collects live data from teams, who can update their status anywhere and at any time with our mobile app for Android and iOS. For a high-level overview, toggle over to the real-time project dashboard or portfolio dashboard if managing multiple projects. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are captured and displayed on easy-to-read graphs and charts that show metrics such as time, cost, workload and more. For more details, use our customizable reports on status, portfolio, variance, workload, timesheets and more. All reports can be filtered to get into the details or provide a summary that can be shared with stakeholders to keep them informed.

Related Content

For those interested in reading more about inspecting and reporting on construction sites, below are a few related pieces that we’ve recently published.

• Inspection Report Template
• Construction Site Management: A Guide to Site Inspection and Site Planning
• What Does a Building Inspection Cover?

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or on the job site. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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From business reports to project summaries, these templates will help you create clear, organized and visually appealing documents in no time. But templates aren’t a perfect solution. Project management software offers a more efficient reporting method for those ready to upgrade. Not ready to make that commitment? That’s okay. These free report templates will still prove useful.

1. Status Report Template

A status report template is valuable for keeping projects on track and stakeholders informed. It provides a clear overview of progress, highlights any challenges and ensures everyone stays aligned with the project goals. Whether you’re managing a small task or a large initiative, using a status report template saves time and ensures consistency. Download this free status report template for Excel to streamline the reporting process and keep teams on the same page.

Once users download this fully customizable free report template, they’ll see it captures the project’s health and progress for a certain period. It begins with general information about the project, such as the name, project managers, etc., as well as defining the reporting period. Progress is outlined in a chart that lists completed and upcoming work, project deliverables and milestones. One section provides an overview of the project’s health, including its budget, schedule, scope, quality control and more. There’s even a risk and change management log. The report ends with conclusions and recommendations.

As we mentioned, free report templates are great. They serve the same purpose as reports in project management software. The big difference is that templates are static documents. Whoever is creating the report has to manually update the data. This not only takes time but can result in human error. Project management software avoids those pitfalls. ProjectManager has real-time status reports that can be generated with a keystroke and deliver data immediately. They can even be filtered to focus on key data points or provide a more general summary to share with stakeholders and keep them updated. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

2. Progress Report Template

A progress report template helps effectively communicate updates on ongoing projects or tasks. It provides a structured way to outline accomplishments, challenges and next steps, ensuring transparency and accountability. Whether you’re reporting to a manager, client or team, using a progress report template saves time and keeps everyone informed. Download this free progress report template for Word to simplify your reporting process and keep your projects moving forward.

Use this free report template to get an overview of all the activities and tasks that have occurred over a period. Besides the general project information, the report opens with a summary. Here it provides an overview of the project scope, schedule, cost and risk, including the current and prior status and a short summary. It also lists all tasks from the reported period, with their status, objective, planned due date and actual due date. Also covered are issues, the budget, accomplishments and expected accomplishments that should be done by the next progress report.

3. Daily Report Template

A daily report template is an efficient way to track daily activities, progress and challenges. It helps teams stay organized, improves communication and keeps everyone aligned on priorities. Whether you’re managing a project, supervising a team or simply keeping track of your tasks, using a daily report template ensures consistency and saves time. Download this free report template for Excel to enhance your productivity and reporting routine.

Whether used as a daily work report, daily activity report or daily progress or task report, this report template is a thorough way to streamline task tracking and keep one’s manager informed. It holds team members accountable and helps management identify trends, optimize workflows and reduce inefficiencies through standardized reporting. In other words, it keeps updates consistent, structured and actionable for project management, operations management or stakeholder management.

4. Inspection Report Template

An inspection report template is a useful tool for documenting observations, findings and recommendations during an inspection. It ensures that all relevant details are recorded consistently, helping you maintain accurate records and comply with regulatory requirements. Whether you’re conducting safety checks, quality assessments or property inspections, using this template saves time and keeps your reports organized. Download this free inspection report template for Excel to streamline your inspection process and improve reporting accuracy.

Use primarily in construction for building inspections, this free report template allows inspectors to thoroughly gather information and track that work. This ensures that the structure being inspected is safe and meets building inspection standards. As with most reports, it opens with general information, which is followed by an inspection summary of key observations and findings, as well as suggested actions and recommendations. Next, is a breakdown of what’s being inspected, such as roofing, sewer lines, security systems, etc.

5. KPI Dashboard Template

A key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard template is an effective way to track and visualize key performance indicators in real time. This free report template provides a clear overview of your team’s progress toward strategic goals, helping you make data-driven decisions. Whether you’re monitoring sales, marketing metrics or operational performance, this template keeps essential data organized and easy to understand. Download this KPI dashboard template for Excel to improve the reporting process and keep teams focused on what matters most.

Use this free report template to track and analyze progress and performance in business or when managing a project. It monitors the performance of individuals, teams, departments, projects and organizations, including financial health and progress toward strategic goals. Managers can use it to quickly identify trends and businesses can then respond to challenges or opportunities faster. In short, it’s a report that tracks metrics and helps make more data-driven decisions.

6. Bug Report Template

A bug report template helps document software issues clearly and consistently, ensuring they are tracked and resolved. It provides a structured format to describe the problem, its impact and the steps to reproduce it, making it easier for developers to understand and fix the issue. Whether you’re a tester, developer or project manager, using a bug report template streamlines the reporting process and improves communication within the team. Download this free bug report template for Excel to manage bugs more efficiently and enhance your product’s quality.

Our free bug report template for Excel should be used during the QA process of a software product to identify and track a problem in its functionality until that issue has been resolved. This report template ensures that all the pertinent information developers need to do their jobs is included. That saves money and time by getting these bugs out of the product before it’s shipped to end users. It can also be archived and reviewed as historical data when working on similar products.

7. Service Report Template

A service report template is an essential tool for documenting the details of a service call or maintenance visit. It helps service technicians record tasks completed, issues encountered and customer feedback, ensuring transparency and accountability. Whether you’re in field service, maintenance or customer support, using this template keeps your reports organized and consistent. Download this free service report template for Word to streamline the reporting process and improve client communication.

Not only does this free report template summarize the work completed for the customer, but it also helps the company by tracking changes, showing where performance improvements can be made and identifying areas for cost reduction. Companies can use this template to identify trends in service requests by archiving the reports and reviewing them in bulk to better anticipate and respond to customer needs.

8. Project Dashboard Template

A project dashboard template is a powerful tool for tracking project progress, milestones and key metrics in one place. It provides a visual overview of timelines, tasks and budget status, helping project managers make informed decisions and keep stakeholders updated. Whether you’re managing a small task or a complex project, this template keeps your team organized and focused on goals. Download this free project dashboard template for Excel to enhance your project management and streamline your reporting process.

The free report template is made up of a pie chart and three bar charts. These colorful charts make it easy to see at a glance how far the team has gone in completing their tasks, showing their workload and task lengths. There’s also a bar chart that tracks costs. Use this free report template to monitor the project to keep it on schedule and within its budget.

9. Lessons Learned Template

A lessons learned template helps teams reflect on completed projects by documenting successes, challenges and areas for improvement. It captures valuable insights that can enhance future projects and prevent repeat mistakes. Whether you’re closing out a small task or a large initiative, this template ensures knowledge is preserved and shared. Download this free lessons learned template for Excel and improve your team’s performance and project outcomes.

This free report template is a great tool to apply after completing a project, whether it failed or succeeded. That is because it gives the project team space to speak freely on what went right and what didn’t in the project. This information must be truthful if it’s to have a positive impact on the way future projects are managed.

10. Project Review Template

A project review template is a valuable tool for assessing the outcomes and performance of a completed project. It helps teams reflect on what went well, what could be improved and how to apply these insights to future projects. Whether you’re conducting a post-project evaluation or sharing results with stakeholders, this template ensures a structured, comprehensive review process. Download this free project review template for Word to learn, adapt and improve.

Similar to the report template on lessons learned, this free template offers a different format to collect that data. It’s recommended to use both templates. Reviewing projects is so important that the extra time to make sure that nothing vital has been overlooked is time well spent. Review project objectives, goals, risks, issues, staffing, resources, success criteria, baseline versus actual results and more.

11. Change Impact Assessment Template

A change impact assessment template helps organizations evaluate the potential effects of proposed changes on processes, teams and systems. It provides a structured approach to identifying risks, benefits and necessary adjustments, ensuring that changes are implemented smoothly and effectively. Whether managing a small update or a major transformation, this report template will help to thoroughly analyze and plan. Download this free change impact assessment template for Excel and anticipate challenges and manage change more successfully.

Use this free report template to inform resource allocation and reduce risk by walking the organization through how the change will impact things and the related costs of implementing it. This report sets the stage for whatever change is coming and makes sure everyone is prepared, whether that’s a new system, policy or the business relocating.

12. Operating Budget Template

An operating budget template is a valuable tool for reporting and managing operating costs within an organization. It provides a clear structure to track expenses, forecast future costs and ensure financial resources are allocated efficiently. Whether you’re preparing a report for stakeholders or monitoring day-to-day operations, this template helps maintain control over your organization’s financial health. Download this free operating budget template for Excel to improve cost management and ensure your operations stay within budget.

This report template can map out the expected costs for the year to create a more accurate budget and be used to review that year to report on operating costs to stakeholders. This report template can then show whether the operating budget was accurate and if costs increased or came in under what was forecasted.

ProjectManager Is a Better Than a Report Template

Free report projects are great, but they’re more of a workaround than a viable solution to monitoring and controlling a project. Templates are static documents. That means every time one wants to generate a report, they have to gather the data and then manually input it into an Excel spreadsheet or Word document. It’s time-consuming and can be ripe for human error. Rather than wasting time and tempting fate, use project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that can create multiple reports with a keystroke and even filter them to focus on what one wants to know. Other features can help track projects.

Get a High-Level Overview With Real-Time Dashboards

Reports can zero in on aspects of the project or provide a detailed summary, but when a project manager wants an instant status report they can toggle over to the real-time dashboards. Some dashboards cover individual projects and portfolio dashboards that gather data on multiple projects in one place. Both dashboards don’t require any setup and capture live data automatically. Then, they display key metrics, such as time, cost, workload and more, in easy-to-read graphs and charts.

Track Resource Allocation Across One or Multiple Projects

Once resources have been scheduled on the Gantt chart, then onboard teams and set their availability, such as PTO, vacation and global holidays, even skill sets and pay rate, to make it easier to assign them. Then check resource allocation on the color-coded workload chart. Project managers can see who is overallocated or underutilized and balance the team’s workload from that page. There’s even a team page to get a daily or weekly summary of the team’s activities, which can be filtered by progress, priority and more.

Related Reporting Content

While these free report templates cover a lot of territory, there’s still more to learn about reporting. For those that want to continue learning about business report templates, reporting software and more, follow these handful of links to some recent pieces we’ve published on our blog.

• Must-Have Business Report Templates
• Project Reporting Software
• Free Project Report Templates for Excel & Word
• Project Performance Reporting: Key Performance Reports
• What Is a Budget Report? Purpose, Components & Benefits

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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Projects produce deliverables, which are simply the results of project activities. Project deliverables can be big or small, and their number varies depending on the project. They’re agreed upon by the project management team and stakeholders during the project planning phase.

Put another way, there are inputs and outputs in any type of project. Inputs are what you put into the project, such as data, resources, etc., and the outcomes are the deliverables. Again, those deliverables vary greatly. For example, a project deliverable can be either a product or service or it can be the documentation that’s part of the project closure.

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Project Scope Template

Use this free Project Scope Template for Word to manage your projects better.

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Project Deliverables vs. Project Milestones

It’s understandable to confuse a project deliverable with a project milestone. A deliverable, after all, is an outcome and to some extent so is a project milestone. But they’re not the same thing. Let’s define a project milestone to make that clearer.

A project milestone is used to mark something big in the project, so a milestone could occur with a deliverable. But milestones are often used to indicate the completion of a project phase. You wouldn’t call moving from project planning to project execution a deliverable, though it’s made up of deliverables, which usually come at the end of a task.

Remember, a deliverable is quantifiable. It’s something that was created over time, with resources and effort. A project milestone, while encompassing deliverables, is a marker in time to indicate the transition from one thing to another.

Project management tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards and project calendars can help you track the progress of your team on the completion of project deliverables. In addition to these project management tools, ProjectManager has one-click reporting that captures data on project variance, time, cost and more. These reports can be shared as PDF attachments or printed depending on the stakeholder’s preference. Better yet, every report can be filtered to show only the data stakeholders want to see about project deliverables. Get started for free today.

Tangible & Intangible Deliverables

A tangible deliverable is one of those project outcomes that are concrete. That is, they have form and substance. An example of a tangible deliverable would be things such as a building, the product of a manufacturing line or even a magazine or newspaper.

An intangible deliverable is a measurable outcome but one that is conceptual rather than one you can touch or hold in your hands. Some examples of intangible deliverables would be a training program for your project team so that they can learn how to use a new software tool or piece of equipment.

How to Identify Project Deliverables Using a Work Breakdown Structure

When planning a project, especially its schedule, you need a work breakdown structure (WBS), which is a tool that identifies all the tangible deliverables in a project. From that, you can determine the tasks that’ll produce those deliverables. Use our free work breakdown structure template for Excel to help you identify all the deliverables in your project and ensure you’re creating a thorough and complete schedule.

1. List All Your Project Activities

In a WBS, project activities are the “how” of a project. They make up the work packages or steps that you’ll have to take to produce project deliverables. Therefore, you’ll want to list all the tasks that will be needed to deliver the project.

2. Group Tasks By Project Phase

At this point, you’ll want to break up the tasks into phases. There are five project phases in project management: initiation, planning, execution, control and closeout. Now, take all the activities you identified and organize them into their corresponding project phases.

3. Determine Which Project Tasks Will Produce Deliverables

Deliverables are the outcomes you want from the activities and the tasks that you listed. Using what you collected in step one, determine the deliverable from each of those activities.

Here’s some expert advice to further explain the difference between project deliverables and project milestones. In the video below, Jennifer Bridges, professional project manager (PMP) explains what project deliverables are and how they’re created throughout the course of a project.

Who Is Responsible for Deliverables?

There isn’t one role solely responsible for project deliverables as many team members are involved at various stages throughout the project. The project manager, however, has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that all deliverables are completed and meet the needed standards. The project manager helps define and document deliverables, monitoring progress and facilitating communication along the way.

Project team members focus on completing specific deliverables. For example, they work to complete tasks according to project specifications and provide regular progress updates to the project manager. Team members will collaborate as needed.

The client or the project sponsor is responsible for reviewing and accepting the final deliverables. In some cases, they may provide feedback throughout the project to ensure the deliverables are meeting the needed expectations. When the project wraps up, they will formally approve and sign off on the completed deliverables.

What Project Documents Help Define What Your Project Deliverables Are?

All projects have one thing in common: documents. It’s no surprise, then, that there are project management documents that can help you define project deliverables. Here are a couple of examples.

Project Charter

A project charter is a short document that explains the reason for the project and, once approved, greenlights the project. Part of the project charter is the implementation plan, which is a roadmap for executing the project. This document includes key project deliverables.

Project Scope Statement

The project scope statement lists the final deliverable for the project, whether that’s a product or service. All deliverables in the project will be described in detail in the project scope statement as it helps avoid confusion with stakeholders later in the project.

Work Breakdown Structure

A work breakdown structure is a project management graph that allows project managers to break down the scope of their project into all the individual tasks and deliverables that must be completed to deliver the project.

Project Deliverables Examples

As you might imagine, there are as many deliverables as there are projects. Deliverables aren’t only the final product or service, though that’s often how many think of them. There are deliverables produced throughout the project. Here are a few types of deliverables.

1. Project Documentation Deliverables

A project deliverable is an outcome of a task, so project documents such as a project plan, a project charter or a project scope statement can be considered project deliverables. Besides key project documents like those, project management reports like status reports, budget reports or progress reports are also deliverables.

2. Services and Outcomes Deliverables

Services and outcomes can be examples of a project deliverable that applies to various industries such as marketing, IT and professional services. Examples of this type of deliverable include training sessions, workshops, consulting services, strategic plans, recommendations and more.

3. Data and Information Deliverables

Project deliverables often revolve around data sets. These sets may include collected and analyzed data, compiled market analysis reports or business intelligence reports generated using data analysis.

Project vs. Product Deliverables

There’s a distinction between project and product deliverables. Project deliverables are such outputs as the project plans, project reports and even meeting minutes. Product deliverables, on the other hand, could be hardware, software, mobile applications, contracts, or even test assessment results.

The deliverables that clients and stakeholders expect at the end of the project are the product or service, of course, but there’s also paperwork, as noted. These documents, when completed, are deliverables that clients and stakeholders need to evaluate the progress or completion of the project.

This paperwork can include:

• Signed contracts
• Finalized expense reports
• Other types of project reports show how work is proceeding versus project plan estimations

Deliverables can vary according to the project’s specifications and the stakeholders’ requirements. But all clients and stakeholders want deliverables that thoroughly wrap up the project at its closure and measure performance against expectations throughout the project. When defining project deliverables, it’s important to use project planning software such as ProjectManager to create a project timeline where you can easily visualize all your project tasks, assign work and track time.

5 Tips & Techniques for Tracking Deliverables

It’s impossible to meet the required project standards without tracking deliverables. Here are a few tips and techniques to implement in an upcoming project.

• Establish Clear Deliverable Definitions and Acceptance Criteria: Before kicking off the project, make sure that each deliverable, including its scope, requirements and acceptance criteria are defined. To do so, create a deliverable definition document outlining the purpose, format, specifications and any relevant standards. This process may require getting stakeholder approval.
• Use a Deliverable Tracking Matrix or Log: A centralized tracking system can go a long way in tracking project deliverables. For example, a tracking spreadsheet or database can track the deliverable’s name, description, owner, start and due dates, status, acceptance criteria and notes. Update the matrix regularly to ensure accuracy.
• Conduct Regular Progress Reviews & Status Meetings: Regular meetings are a great way to address any issues and check on the status of each deliverable. Identify any roadblocks and assign action items if a particular deliverable is at a standstill. Visual aids like Gantt charts are especially helpful to visually represent progress.
• Implement Formal Deliverable Reviews & Acceptance Procedures: A formal review and acceptance process can ensure deliverables meet stakeholder expectations. Formal reviews with stakeholders can assess deliverable quality while acceptance checklists can ensure each deliverable has been thoroughly reviewed. Be sure to document this process.
• Leverage Project Management Software: Project management software can automate deliverable tracking and reporting without the stress of keeping static documentation updated. For example, software has task management features to assign tasks, set due dates and track progress. Use it to create deliverable milestones and generate progress reports to share with stakeholders.

How to Present Project Deliverables to Stakeholders

Project managers and project management offices (PMOs) make reports about project deliverables to keep clients and stakeholders updated on their progress throughout the project life cycle. Different stakeholders have different needs, so flexibility and customization are important for effective reporting. To meet their needs, project management software must be able to filter the many data inputs to deliver the proper output.

ProjectManager Helps You to Report Progress on Project Deliverables

Creating deliverables for project management and reporting on them is easy using these reports:

• Project status report
• Variance report
• Timesheet report

Compiling project status reports is a great way to:

1. Illustrate for stakeholders how work is proceeding
2. Show which team members are carrying the heaviest loads and if adjustments need to be made
3. Outline room for improvement as the project moves ahead or at closure

Status Report

Our project status reports are highly customizable, with options to select a variety of columns and data sets to extract exactly the information you’re seeking on the project’s status and the completion of project deliverables.

Below is an example of a project status report that can be generated with several variables including work breakdown structure (WBS), planned start and finish dates, planned hours, percent complete, task assignments, start dates and actual hours:

Variance Report

Variance reports can be customized to include only summary tasks, completion percentages and a comparison of the actual progress of the project versus the forecasted progress.

The resulting report shows a side-by-side comparison of predicted start and finish dates, predicted hours versus actual hours spent and that difference and the difference in predicted project duration and how long it’s actually taken to date:

Timesheet Report

Timesheet reports provide a bird’s-eye view of each individual’s hours worked on a project.

They also show:

• Assignment of tasks to team members and the importance of those tasks
• Each individual’s hourly rate
• Many other factors related to resources, time and cost

The timesheet shows the person submitting the time, the date of submission, how many individual hours they worked during the selected timeframe, their WBS and how many hours they have remaining in the selected timeframe:

Consistent use of these three reports helps keep your team on time, under budget and within scope when it comes to the completion of project deliverables. Lessons learned in libraries can also be a great tool to help build upon successes and avoid duplicating mistakes in future projects.

Lessons Learned Libraries

Creating a lessons-learned library is a great way to compile takeaways from projects. It’s a central place to view work that exceeded expectations and also works that could have been better. As a new project kicks off, project managers use this resource to plan for known roadblocks.

ProjectManager acts as an online hub for all your project documents, keeping you organized and everything at your fingertips whether you’re in the office, the field or at home. Use our list view to collect all your reports on deliverables. More than just a to-do list, you can assign, comment and track progress on each item. Save old projects for historical data when planning new ones. Our customized tags make it easy for your to catalog your work so it’s always easy to find.

Related Content

There’s a lot to learn before you can plan, schedule, execute and deliver projects successfully. For this reason, we’ve created dozens of blogs, templates, ebooks and videos on the most important topics in project management. Here are some of them.

• 20+ Project Management Tools & Techniques
• Best Project Management Certifications
• Project Management Basics: Definitions, Methods and Tools
• 100+ Project Management Terms: PM Terminology
• PMBOK: The Project Management Body of Knowledge Explained
• Top 15 Project Management Methodologies: An Overview
• Best Project Management Charts for Project Planning
• ¿Qué Son los Entregables de un Proyecto? Con Ejemplos

Stakeholders and clients can request deliverables at a moment’s notice. Being able to shift on the fly and produce what your client wants requires a strong project management tool to keep things organized and up-to-date. ProjectManager is all online, so team members can collaborate on deliverables and rapidly prepare the best possible outputs. Try our award-winning software with this free 30-day trial.

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