How project status reports work: 8 steps + template

It's the end of the week, and here you are again: having to dig through a variety of spreadsheets, emails, and tools to patch together an update of how your project is doing.

Reporting on the status of work is critical to keeping your team on the same page, identifying risks early, and staying on track and on budget. But manually compiling this information from different sources is one of the biggest drivers of busywork that gets in the way of your meaningful, high-impact tasks.

Instead of manually assembling this information, use a project status report template to streamline the process. You'll spend less time on data gathering and more time on work that matters.

This article walks you through what a status report is, how to write one in 8 steps, and best practices for keeping stakeholders informed.

What is a project status report?

A project status report is a document that provides stakeholders with a high-level summary of a project's current state, including what's on track, what's blocked, and what's coming next. These timely updates keep your entire project team and cross-functional collaborators aligned without requiring lengthy meetings or constant check-ins.

Regularly sharing project status reports is important because they help you keep all project stakeholders aligned and informed. They answer questions before team members even have a chance to ask them. A good status report demonstrates progress and builds confidence in the project's direction.

How often you share project status reports depends on your project's timeline. Some projects benefit from weekly reporting, while others only need to be updated once a month.

Types of status reports

The frequency of project status reports can vary depending on the project timeline, complexity, and stakeholder needs. Choose a schedule that provides timely, concise information without overwhelming your team. Effective reports should be consistent and informative, regardless of the project's health.

Let's explore the four most common types of status reports and their unique benefits.

1. Daily status reports

Daily status reports provide a granular view of a project's progress, ideal for fast-paced projects or those nearing critical milestones. These concise updates typically include:

• Tasks completed today

• Planned tasks for tomorrow

• Any roadblocks encountered

• Urgent action items

Daily reports help maintain real-time communication within the project team and quickly identify potential issues before they escalate.

2. Weekly status reports

Weekly status reports are among the most common and effective project status report types. They offer a balanced view of the project's progress without overwhelming stakeholders with too much detail. A typical weekly status report might include:

• High-level overview of the project's health (often using color-coding: green, yellow, red)

• Key accomplishments from the past week

• Upcoming tasks and milestones

• Potential risks and mitigation strategies

• Updates on project metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs)

Weekly reports are excellent for keeping the entire project team and key stakeholders aligned on the project's current status and short-term goals.

3. Monthly status reports

Monthly status reports provide a broader perspective on the project's progress and are particularly useful for longer-term projects. These reports often include:

• Executive summary of the project's overall status

• Progress against key milestones and the project timeline

• Budget updates and financial metrics

• Significant achievements and challenges

• Long-term risks and their management strategies

Monthly reports are valuable for updating senior management and external stakeholders who don't require weekly updates but need to stay informed about the project's direction.

4. Quarterly status reports

Quarterly status reports offer a high-level overview of the project's progress over a three-month period. These comprehensive reports are especially useful for large, complex projects or when reporting to executive-level stakeholders. A quarterly status report typically includes:

• Project summary and goals

• Major milestones achieved and upcoming

• Overall project health assessment

• Key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics

• Budget status and projections

• Risk management updates

• Strategic recommendations

Quarterly reports help stakeholders understand the project's progress within the project lifecycle and often inform high-level decision-making.

Status report vs. progress report

While people often use the terms interchangeably, status reports and progress reports serve different purposes. Here's how they compare:

In practice, many teams combine elements of both into a single update to give stakeholders a complete picture.

The benefits of effective project status reporting

Effective status reporting delivers measurable benefits for project managers and stakeholders alike. Here's what you gain:

Keep track of project health

The worst thing for a project is to arrive at the end of the timeline and realize you were off track the whole time. No one likes being blindsided, and as the project manager, you're empowered to make sure your team is aware of your project's health at all times.

Status reports make this easy by mixing high-level summaries with key metrics. If the project is off track, you can quickly course correct and still hit your deadline on time and on budget.

Summarize project progress

Project status reports are not real-time reports. These reports summarize what happened during the past week, two weeks, or a month of project work. They're an opportunity for your stakeholders to stay informed on how well you're sticking to the project plan.

If you're looking for tips on how to report on projects in real time, check out our article on universal reporting tools for every team.

Reduce manual work

As the project manager, you already have enough on your plate. You don't need to spend hours every week or month grabbing data from different places. Project reporting tools make it easy to find all this information in one place and create a project status report with a click.

Share next steps and action items

Project status reports should go out to your project team, project sponsor, important stakeholders, and cross-functional team members.

This is the optimal way to let everyone know what's happening without getting into the details. If there are important next steps or action items for the project, share them here so everyone knows what to expect.

Identify blockers early

If your project isn't on track, your status report lets others know the cause of the delay and what you're doing to resolve any blockers. Similar to the project risk management process, regular status reporting helps you identify and overcome issues before they affect your project timeline.

Say goodbye to status meetings

The status meeting is over. We now know these aren't effective ways to spend your time. Unlike face-to-face meetings, project status reports are shared in a central tool that team members can check asynchronously.

They can refer back to the information or dig deeper into the project if necessary. Save your face-to-face meeting time for valuable meetings like brainstormings or all-hands.

How to write a status report in 8 steps

So, how do you go about doing project status reports? Be sure to create a clear structure you can use consistently for all future status reports. You should also make sure it matches your project brief to keep your report on topic.

Follow this guide to understand what to include in your project status report, and watch as we put each step into practice with an example of an Employee Satisfaction project.

Step 1: Build your report where work lives

Before you build your report, make sure you're already tracking your work information in a project management tool. That way, you don't have to manually grab information from a host of sources. Instead, you can reduce manual work and create a report with a few clicks.

Starting off with a project management tool makes it easy to capture dependencies and note upcoming tasks so you're never blindsided by your project's health.

Step 2: Name your report

A great option is to simply use the project name for clarity. If you're reporting on this project regularly, you should also include a date or timestamp.

Example project report title: February 2025 - Employee satisfaction initiative

Step 3: Indicate project health

The project's health is its current status. Project health may change from report to report, especially if you encounter blockers or address significant project risks. Look for a project management tool that lets you communicate the project's status and whether it's on track.

One way to do this is to use a color coding system (green = on track, yellow = at risk, red = off track).

Example project health update: Project status is on track.

Step 4: Quickly summarize the status report

Your project status report summary should be brief, about 2-3 sentences. The goal here is to give readers who may not have time to read the entire report a quick TL;DR of the most important facts.

This is the first section of your report, so it's the best place to:

• Include highlights

• Flag major blockers

• Note unexpected project risks

If you want to simplify summarization, try using our progress report template.

Example status report summary: Our survey results are in and being reviewed. At first glance, we're seeing 80% employee satisfaction, up 3 points from the last survey. The Engagement Committee is working with the Executive team on new engagement initiatives to implement in our key target areas, including career growth and transparency.

Step 5: Add a high-level overview of each key area

Depending on your project, your key areas may vary from report to report or remain consistent. For example, in an Agile project that's continuously improving, you'd likely use flexible key areas that cover the work your team did in the last sprint.

For each key area in the status report, add a few bullet points that give an update on progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Example high-level overview of a key area: Survey results

• 70% of employees took the satisfaction survey.

• Our overall satisfaction rating is 80%.

• Only 57% of employees report having a clear path towards career advancement, down 5% since the last survey.

• 41% of employees listed transparency as the number one improvement they'd like to see.

Step 6: Add links to other documents or resources

While you shouldn't include every little detail about how your project is going, some people will want to know more. For stakeholders seeking more in-depth information, provide links to documents or resources. This can include more specific project information, like links to specific project milestones, or the broader impacts of the project, like a reference to the business goals the project is contributing to.

Example: Include a link to the employee satisfaction survey, as well as to the larger company OKR around increasing employee engagement over the course of the fiscal year.

Step 7: Flag any blockers the project has run into

All projects run into roadblocks. These can come in the form of project risks, unexpected increases to the budget, or delays that affect the project timeline. Keeping stakeholders in the loop when issues arise will help everyone adjust accordingly to stay on track.

Example roadblock: The executive team wants to review results before the engagement committee meets again, but won't be able to do so for another 3 weeks. This will delay our overall project timeline.

Step 8: Highlight next steps

These could include a list of next steps, kudos you want to give someone, or anything else you want to highlight.

Example: Thank you, Sarah A., for sending out multiple communications to employees encouraging them to participate in the survey!

Project status report template

To quickly put everything you learned in the previous section to use, write your next project status report using this easy-to-fill-out template:

Report name:

Name your report. This can be as simple as the project name and the date of the report.

Project health:

Is the project on track, at risk, or delayed?

Summary:

Include a short description of the most important takeaways from your project status report here. Keep in mind that busy stakeholders may only look at this section, so include any highlights or blockers the entire team needs to know about

Key area 1: High-level overview

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Key area 2: High-level overview

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Key area 3: High-level overview

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

• Specific details about progress, accomplishments, and upcoming work.

Additional information and links:

Link to relevant project details or higher-level project information that stakeholders might be curious about. This section is a chance for team members to dig deeper on specifics, or understand how the project initiative fits into your larger strategic goals.

Blockers:

Are there any challenges you're facing? How will you resolve them?

Additional notes or highlights:

Are there any additional things your team needs to know? What are the main next steps?

Status report example

While a how-to guide on writing project status reports is helpful, sometimes seeing a real-life example allows you to really see what your own update could look like. Here's a status report example you may find useful:

Report name: Ebook launch

Project status: On track

Summary:

Great progress this week! We are still in the concept phase, but Avery Lomax will be choosing a topic this week. Content and Design teams are standing by and ready to get started once we give the go-ahead.

Concept:

• Planning team met to discuss an overall topic

• We have three final ideas and will choose one on Friday

• A brief is due to the Content team the following Thursday

Content:

• The Content team is ready to start writing copy as soon as our idea is finalized

• They are gathering pertinent company information that should be included

Design:

• Design reviewed five ebook examples to determine the style they liked

• They will be choosing a template by next Tuesday

Additional notes or highlights:

• Jen is out of the office all next week, so please direct any content questions to Joy

• Thank you to Henry for curating a huge list of topics for us to choose from!

Issues/challenges:

The ebook's deadline is tight, as we all know. It's critical that we all use our project management tool to keep everyone organized and on track.

Streamline status reporting with a work management tool

The above report is clear and easy to follow. By building this report in a work management tool like Asana, you can automatically fill each section but the summary. Here's what the above report looks like in Asana:

Project status reporting best practices

Now you know what to include in your project status report, but you may still have a few additional questions. As you're creating status reports for your project, these best practices will help you formulate a winning update.

How often should you report out?

The frequency of your status reports depends on the type of project you're running:

• Fast-moving or short-term projects: Send weekly status reports to keep pace with rapid changes.

• Long-term initiatives: Biweekly or monthly reports are usually sufficient.

The most important thing is making sure your project stakeholders stay up to date.

When you use a project reporting tool, you can set a task for yourself to always send status reports on a certain day each week. These recurring reminders make it easy to keep stakeholders informed. Stakeholders will begin to expect your updates, which means fewer frequent check-ins from them.

By sending regular reports, you can avoid multiple meetings related to a project (we all know unnecessary meetings have their own reputation). Skip the check-in meetings and save your time for more important work.

Who should you include?

Typically, send updates to any stakeholders working on your project. Refer to the stakeholder analysis you created during planning, or check your project plan if you're unsure.

Even if a particular update doesn't directly affect every team member, share it with everyone. Those who need details can dive in, while others can quickly skim the summary to stay informed.

How detailed should you get?

A project status report shouldn't offer every little detail. Think of it as a top-line message that curates the most important information affecting stakeholders. Let the work tell the story.

You should always indicate whether the project is on track, at risk, or off track, give a quick summary of what's complete and what's upcoming, then link out to other resources for people who want more details.

Essential components of a status report

A well-crafted project progress report should include the following key elements, which you can customize based on your project's specific needs and the desired level of detail:

1. Project details: Begin with a high-level overview of the project, including its name, goals, overall scope, and position within the larger project roadmap.

2. Current status: Provide a concise update on the project's current state and recent accomplishments, showing its alignment with the project plan and timeline. Specify the reporting period to give context to the information presented.

3. Key metrics and KPIs: Include relevant performance indicators that demonstrate the project's progress. These could be quantitative measures like project budget utilization, task completion rates, or other project-specific metrics.

4. Milestones: Highlight completed milestones and upcoming key project milestones. This helps stakeholders understand both recent achievements and what to expect next in the project life cycle.

5. Risks, blockers, and issues: Identify any potential roadblocks, dependencies, or challenges that may affect the project's success. Be sure to include proposed mitigation strategies or action items to address these concerns.

6. Next steps and action items: Outline upcoming tasks, assignments, and deadlines. This gives team members and stakeholders clarity on what to expect in the near future and helps maintain project momentum.

Remember, an effective status report balances the need for detailed information with clarity and brevity, making it easy for readers to quickly track progress.

Where should you write your project status report?

The best way to draft and share status updates is with a work management tool. Look for a tool that offers an overview of your project, so your team has a central source of truth for all project-related work. That way, instead of managing projects in spreadsheets, you can keep it all in one place: status updates, project briefs, key deliverables, and important project milestones.

Your reports will be easily shareable, and stakeholders can look back on previous reports at any time, avoiding email overload on your end.

Streamline status reporting with work management software

Project status reporting with work management software delivers three key benefits:

• Reduces manual work: No more digging through spreadsheets and emails to compile updates.

• Centralizes information: All project data lives in one place, accessible to everyone.

• Keeps everyone aligned: Stakeholders can check status anytime without scheduling meetings.

If your information is scattered across multiple tools, you can't effectively use project reporting templates.

Instead, make sure you're using project management software as your central source of truth. With project management software, you:

• Have a central source of truth so team members can see who's doing what by when.

• Can easily visualize project information in a Gantt chart, Kanban board, calendar, or spreadsheet-style list view.

• Create status reports with the click of a button.

• Offer a place for team members who read the status report and want more details to look and find the information they need.

• Have access to additional project information, like your project plan, communication plan, project goals, milestones, deliverables, and more.

Naturally, we think Asana is a great option. Asana is a work management tool your entire team can use. Your cross-functional collaborators need a way to view past status reports, your key stakeholders need a bird's-eye view of program progress, and your team members need a way to track individual work throughout the project lifecycle.

Wrapping up your project with an executive summary

The status reports we've been talking about are always sent during a project to keep everyone in the loop. However, once the project is finished, it's smart to send out a final summary report. Think of this as the executive summary for your project.

This is your chance to offer stakeholders a wrap-up of the project. Use it to officially close it out.

Again, it's a high-level overview, but instead of including updates and statuses, you'll provide a summary of how the project went overall. Here are a few questions to answer in a project summary report:

• What were the goals of this project, and were they met?

• Was the project completed on time and on budget (if applicable)?

• What successes should be highlighted?

• What challenges did we run into?

• What can we learn from this project to help us on future projects?

Keep every stakeholder on track with status reports that write themselves

If you're looking to over-deliver on your next project, try sending project status updates. They keep you productive, efficient, and accountable, while giving everyone else a quick look into what's been happening.

Use the resources we've provided to create reports that give just enough information without diving into too much detail. Find a project management solution like Asana that has features designed specifically to help with status reports. Ready to streamline your reporting? Get started with Asana today.

Frequently asked questions about project status reports