The Resourceful Reporter, Part 17: Project Plans

The project evaluation report is the topic of this and the next two WORDS ON THE LINE posts. Project evaluation reports fall into three general categories:

1. Planning Reports – Written before the project begins to establish project feasibility, objectives, stakeholders, deliverables, owners, standards, timeline, and milestones.
2. Status (or Progress) Reports – Written at various times during the project to explain progress and challenges in achieving deliverables and milestones. 
3. Completion Reports – Written after the project ends to describe project achievements, setbacks, lessons learned, and recommendations for future projects.

Planning reports, the focus of this post, answers numerous questions about the project's objectives, participants, stakeholders, sites, timeline, methodology, resources, and goals:

Objectives

• What problem or need does the project address?
• What are the project's objectives?
• Does the objectives address the problem or need?

Participants

• Who is managing the project?
• What interest does management have in the project?

Stakeholders

• Who are the stakeholders served by the project?
• How are stakeholders served by the project? 

Site

• Is the location most appropriate for achieving the project's objectives?
• Is the location most appropriate for achieving the project's stakeholders?

Timeline

• How long will the project run?
• Is the timeline appropriate for meeting the project's objectives?

Methodology

• What strategies will management deploy to achieve the objective?
• What activities will management engage in to achieve the objectives?

Resources

• What fiscal resources are being budgeted for the project?
• Are the costs appropriate for the project scope?
• What human resources will be engaged?
• Are the staff's qualifications sufficient to meet the objectives?
• Is the number of staff appropriate to meet the objectives?
• What material resources will be used for the project?
• Are the material resources appropriate to meet the objectives?

Goals

• What are the goals of the project?
• Do the goals address the purpose of the project?
• How can the goals be measured with validity and reliability?

The next post will cover status reports.

Other reports in this series:

1. Meeting Reports
2. Incident Reports
3. Investigation Reports
4. Inspection Reports
5. Procedural Reports
6. Scopes of Work
7. Test Reports
8. Course Reviews
9. Conference Reviews
10. Contractor Appraisals
11. Staff Appraisals
12. Self-Appraisals
13. Audit Reports
14. Root-Cause Reports
15. Business Forecasts