How to Develop Issues Status Reports: Filtering Items for Status Reports

To keep an issues status report under one page, you may have to limit yourself to five or fewer issues on a weekly basis. When team members miss deadlines and a project feels threatened, picking just four or five issues from the pile might seem to belittle the needs of the project. However, the process of filtering issues for a report can become a cathartic and productive part of a manager’s weekly routine.

In the same way that project teams pick goals that are both actionable and measurable, project managers must highlight issues that require team input and collaboration for resolution. Issues that can be

resolved through other channels, such as e-mail or face-to-face interaction, still need to be addressed. By backchanneling those items and focusing only on the topics that can generate significant improvement, project managers can lead meetings that are both insightful and impactful.

Readers of Steven Covey have become familiar with the distinctions he made in his 7 Habits series between “urgency” and “importance.” Because many issues status reports are easily driven by urgency, it takes a strong project manager to focus on the big picture. At any given time, dozens of individual tasks might have fallen behind. Others may be in jeopardy. A strong project manager should be able to understand which tasks can be left to simmer and which threaten to bring an entire project beyond the boiling point.

When thinking about which four or five issues to highlight in a status report, consider whether an issue can serve as a template for solving other problems within a project team. For example, if discussion around a particular issue can result in a policy or procedure that can eliminate an entire set of similar issues, then a single representative from that group can be included in the report. Likewise, if solving a particular problem in one way may cause repercussions throughout the project plan, that item may warrant more discussion than a more urgent, but less universal, item.

In organizations where contentious relationships sometimes play out during status meetings, routine deadlines can help team members resolve their own issues. This way, issues that don’t require input from team leaders or stakeholders can filter

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