After my little diatribe titled "Project Management Theater" I had a few days to think about the less than stellar status report provided by the vendor to my customer. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the vendor did nothing to meet the unique customer needs. The attitude was Well, you asked for a status report. This shows status. I'm a firm believer that you need to understand who your customer is and then provide status reporting to meet their needs. Even when using a burndown chart for a team, I usually don't show that to a C-Level. I understand that C-Levels (CEOs, COOs, CTOs...) are looking at the business more strategically. For that reason, I offer my 50,000 foot view of the project or program. Two years ago, when I arrived at this PMO, I looked at their Metrics Plan. One of the things that was missing was a summary graph or chart for the Federal Senior Executives (SES). What you see above is one graphical indicator I provided to them. What you do not see in the screen-grab is the associated data, which I made available on subsequent pages. I'd like to thank Sam Palani over at Around the CHAOS for inspiring me to write this post. His post How Worthy are Your Status Reports nailed it.
Feel free to download a copy of my original (TPS Report) template Total_Project_Status_Template