CRC for Low Carbon Living Project Management Procedures
Project Status Reporting
What: This 1 – 2 page report template summarises progress on a project in the CRC for Low Carbon
Living. The format is “what we did last period”, “what we’re doing next period” and “issues we’re working
on now”. The report allows stakeholders, project participants and team members to quickly assess a
project’s status and progress.
Why: Frequent communication of project status and issues is a vital part of effective project risk
management. The “what we did” and “what we are going to do” sections provide a regular progress
stocktake for the team and management and an early alert to indications of slip. The “Issues” section
helps expose project risk areas early, focus attention on tasks to mitigate them, and communicate a
possible need for help from outside the immediate project team.
How: Traffic light indicators
 “Green” - the project is on track for hitting milestones, schedule, cost, and requirements goals; and
there are no major issues.
 “Yellow” - early warning of a potential risk to either milestones, schedule, cost or requirements
goals – see the Issues section for details.
 “Red” - one or more serious issues have put project success in jeopardy.
Adjust these definitions to fit your project’s critical success factors and goals if necessary.
When: We recommend that Project Leaders prepare monthly reports and send them to project
participants and the appropriate Program Leader. Also, you can change the frequency of the reports as
necessary -- a monthly report can become fortnightly during a time of intense project activity.
When a project is running smoothly, there should a visible correlation between one report’s “Upcoming
tasks for this period” and the next report’s “Key accomplishments last period”. Most of the task
descriptions should just change their action verbs to past tense. If there is little correlation between what
you intend to do each period and what you ended up accomplishing, the project is probably experiencing
problems such as inadequate resources, unclear requirements, or convergence on solutions that meets
requirements.
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CRC for Low Carbon Living Project Management Procedures
Explanation of Report Sections
Status Summary
Project Health:
Red
Yellow
Green
A ‘traffic-light’ approach is used as a quick visual cue as to the overall health of the project:
 “Green” - the project is on track for hitting milestones, schedule, cost, and requirements goals; and
there are no major issues.
 “Yellow” - early warning of a potential risk to either milestones, schedule, cost or requirements goals –
see the Issues section for details.
 “Red” - one or more serious issues have put project success in jeopardy.
Milestones:
Please provide current status of the project milestones.
Accomplishments this period:
 List brief 1- or 2- sentence descriptions of what was accomplished in this last period.
 Include important schedule milestones if any occurred in this last period.
 Include any events that significantly reduced risk in the project.
 Include key tasks that closed an issue that was marked “open” on the previous report.
Activities planned for next period:
 List brief 1- or 2-sentence descriptions of what you plan to accomplish this next period.
 Include important schedule milestones if any that will occur in this period.
 Include any events that will significantly reduce risk in the project.
 Include key tasks that will move an open issue toward closure.
Issues:


List principal open issues – try to identify an owner of the issue and try to include a task in the
“Upcoming tasks for this period” that will move this issue toward closure.
Don’t try to track all project issues in this report. Just list the principal ones along with any progress
toward closing them.
Project IP, Publications and Media releases:

List all project IP that has been developed, publications and media releases (intended or already
published) for period. Please note participants have an obligation to seek permission from the CRC for
Low Carbon Living before releasing publications related to the CRC. Prior consent is required from the
CRC before making a statement in media related to the CRC and/or its activities. A copy of the
publication or media release must be forwarded to the CRC for Low Carbon Living.
Education:

List VET, Training courses delivered for period. Please provided details regarding names of courses,
number of participants, target audience etc.
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CRC for Low Carbon Living Project Management Procedures
Project Resources – Cash expenses
Original project budget attached
 Use of CRC cash funds: Provide commentary on expenses incurred by the project (by each participant
where appropriate) in the last period.
 Explain significant variations (greater than 10% under or above) to expenses and cash flow from the
approved budget and list any planned changes. Participant’s project costs should be less than or equal
to the ‘project funds’).e.g. Are all staff proposed in budget still working on project? Have all budget
non-staff costs occurred?
Project Resources – In-kind contributions:
Original project budget attached
 Provide commentary on in-kind contributions made to the project (by each participant where
appropriate) in the last period and list any actual or planned changes to approved budget
 List any significant variations (greater than 10% under or above) to the total resources (as either hours
or FTE) that each participant actually contributed to the project in the last period. Budgeted FTE for
project are listed in the attached budget. Actuals can be obtained from timesheets and/or participant
quarterly returns to the CRC for Low Carbon Living.
Risks:

List any risks identified with the project and any mitigation plans.
Utilization / Commercialization:

List any Patent applications, registered Designs / Trademarks, Licences / Options / Assignments and
Material transfer agreements and direct product sales related to this project.
Changes to Plan:

List any changes to the original project plan and actions.
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PROJECT STATUS REPORT
Project Status Reporting
Project ID & Name
Project Leader (& lead
institution)
Research Program
Project Duration
Project Start Date
Project Finish Date
Reporting Period
Date of Report
Project Agreement Execution Status Summary
Project Participant
Signed?
Project Participant
(Date)
Signed?
(Date)
Status Summary
Project Health
Red
Yellow
Green
Comments
Milestones
Milestone
Planned Due
Date
Actual
Completion/
Forecast
Accomplishments This Period
Commentary
Activities planned for Next Period
Commentary
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Variance Explanation
PROJECT STATUS REPORT
Issues
Issue
Actions Planned
Responsible Party
Due Date
Project IP, Publications & Media Releases (intended or published)
Details
Copy
provided to
CRC?
Approved by
CRC?
Education (VET, Training courses delivered etc.)
Details
Project Resources – Cash expenses
Provide commentary on expenses made and any actual or planned changes to approved budget.
Project Resources –In-kind contributions
Provide commentary on in-kind contributions made and any actual or planned changes to approved budget.
Risks (Refer to Risk Register)
Risk
Status
Utilisation / Commercialisation
Details
Changes to plan
Change Requested
Reason for request
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