Winning the confidence of the funding agency:

How to prepare progress reports

Dr K Kuhathasan

* Progress reports enables the client to check on progress, direction of development, emphasis of the investigation, and general conduct of the work. Thus the client can alter the course of the work before too much time and money have been invested.

* It enables the implementing agency to estimate work done and work remaining with respect to the total time and effort available.

* It compels the implementing agency to evaluate their work and focus their attention.

* If the work includes a final report, as a research project or a feasibility study, it provides a sample report that helps both the client and the implementing agency to decide upon the tone, content, and plan of the final report.

Quarterly report recapitulates the main contents of the preceding monthly letters and adds the work done during the month since the last letter. In short, the bound quarterly report is sent instead of a third letter for each of the first three quarters.

Towards the end of a project (about 11 months into a year’s project), when affairs often have reached a critical stage, a preliminary copy of the proposed final report may be sent either in addition to or instead of the eighth monthly letter.

Usually the prose has yet to be edited and polished. Some or all of the illustrations may be roughly sketched or omitted entirely. The submission of this report enables the client to react and criticize and thereby get a final report more to his or her liking.

Progress reports, like most pieces of writing, have a beginning, a middle and an end. The following plan for a progress report shows what these three parts may contain:

Beginning

* Introduction

* Project description

Middle

* Summary of the work done in the preceding period (s) – included in all project reports after the first

* Work done in period just closing

* Work planned for next work period

* Work planned for periods thereafter

End

* Overall appraisal of work to date

* Conclusions and recommendations concerning work.

Recognize that the plan shown here is for a full-scale report. More modest progress reports may collapse some of the parts together. For example, the project description may be part of the introduction or, if there are no changes in it, omitted altogether.

“Work planned for next period” and “Work planned for previous thereafter” may be lumped together under a heading like “Work remaining”.

Conclusions and recommendations may be integrated into the overall appraisal. But, no matter how, all these elements should be presented.

The beginning

Progress report introductions are, in general, typical four-part introductions that make clear the subject, purpose, scope and plan of the report.

They should clearly relate the report to the work being done. Also, because progress reports are executive reports, give the readers some idea of your overall progress in the introduction. The project description (also known by other names, such as work statement and contractual requirements) spells out what the implementing agency is required to do and produce. It makes clear the purpose and scope of the project. If changes are made in the contractual agreement, the project description should reflect these changes.

The middle

The middle section of every progress report must bring together two elements: time and the tasks accomplished or to be accomplished during that time. This fact suggests that the middle portion of the progress report can be organized around either time or tasks.

Time plan

If the time plan is used for the overall plan of a progress report, the reader understands what time period is being discussed at any point in the report. Let us look at four possible headings for proof of this point.

* Work Previously Done

* Work Done in the Period Just Closing

* Work Scheduled for the Next Period

* Work Scheduled for Periods Thereafter

Task plan

The project description of the progress report often givens the task breakdown of the entire project. These tasks may be performed at different times, by separate individuals, working at different locations.

If this, or something close to it, is the working arrangements, then it may be convenient to organize the progress report on the task plan. The task plan is realistic and objective. The customer and project supervisor can readily and firmly estimate the amount of work done and remaining on each task. By the same token, this plan throws the glaring spotlight of unfavourable publicity on tasks that are not going well. Also, if the tasks are to be done in sequence, with little or no overlapping, then a given progress report may have solid prose to devote to only one of the tasks, with the other tasks being essentially blank for the time being. Therefore, the task plan seems most appropriate when several or all tasks are being performed concurrently.

Combination plans

Clearly, these plans can be used in combination, the exact arrangement depending upon where you wish to put the emphasis. You could, for instance choose between these arrangement:

I. Work Done in preceding Periods

* Establishing Locations, depth, and Content of the Deposits

* Determining Equipment and Methods

* Applying Criteria to Proposed Project

II. Work Done in Period Just Closing

* Establishing location, lepth and content of the deposits etc.

Establishing Locations, Depth and Content of Deposits

* Work Done in Preceding Periods

* Work Done in Period just Closing

* Work scheduled for Next Period

* Work Scheduled for Periods Thereafter

Determining Equipment and Methods

* Work Done in Preceding Period etc.

The ending

In the ending of the progress report you draw things together for your funding agency. You summarize and review your progress.

You provide answers to the kinds of questions executives are likely to ask. Are you on time or ahead of time? Are you running into unexpected problems? How are you solving them? Is the scope of the work changing? If so, how and why? Is a consultation needed between you and the client? Are costs running higher than expected? How much higher and why? Would some new approach or procedure be more efficient and less costly? Is something unexpected and significant showing up in the research? Does it throw past findings into doubts? Are materials called for in construction specifications no longer available? What can be substituted for them? Much of the material you cover in the overall appraisal will have already been presented in the middle section of the report, but here you highlight the significant facts. Then you draw conclusions from these facts and make recommendations.

Because executives read selectively, they may skip the middle of the report and come directly to this part. Therefore, this section of the progress report should be able to stand on its own.

Also, you may wish to consider moving the overall appraisal near the front of the report, perhaps placing it right after the introduction. In modest letter and memorandum reports, you might consider making it part of the introduction.

Physical appearance

To put the reader-client in a receptive frame of mind, a progress report must be physically attractive. It does not mean expansiveness and glamour but rather neatness, appropriateness, and good design. Reports that exceed letter or memorandum length should have a protective cover both front and back. The title page should be tasteful and uncluttered. The print (or typing) should be clean and legible.

Nevertheless, all the progress letters and reports arriving from a project should not exceed a very small percentage (perhaps 5 percent) of the total funding of the project. After all, were are paid to make progress and not to linger lovingly over the reporting of progress.

Style and tone

Progress reports are a project’s emissaries. If these emissaries seem tired, confused and unhappy what then is the customer to think of the workers “back home”? Progress reports therefore should read with vigour, firmness and authority-one might risk optimism. Yet their forcefulness must lie in more than artful writing. Generalizations must be bolstered by recitations of detailed factual accomplishment. Snags, problems, and delays should be honestly discussed, but the accent should be on positive accomplishments.

A neat balance between these two aspects of project will prevent progress reports from reading like either a trail of disaster or an outpouring of giddy optimism. Excess in either direction will always have its day of reckoning.

Originality

The first progress report often leaves much to be desired. For one thing, the project just recently got under way and whatever progress has been made cannot yet be crystallized. For another thing, the first progress report, lacking precedent, sometimes seems tentative and experimental. The next two or three progress reports usually represent a substantial improvement over the first, for they have accomplishments to report and they profit from earlier experience.

However, after the third or fourth progress report of a series, the reports tend to hit a plateau or go downhill. A feeling of repetition may be disturbing to authors. This slacking off must be prevented at any cost. Bringing in new blood to the writing staff may help. A staff review of the project may help. But a clear recognition of the need to maintain reading interest, verve and originality is a necessity.

Keep out of the rut. Do not simply warm over last month’s progress report. Take a fresh look at the whole problem of reporting progress.

Accomplishment and foresight

Your funding agency will find it heartening to learn all you have accomplished on his or her behalf. Past performance is probably the most reassuring promise of future performance. Yet investigators should not seem to e moving blindly into the future work periods, like an automobile driver about to run off the margin of his only road map.

Therefore, progress reports, while stressing what has been done should give adequate attention to plans for the future.

For the next work period, the plans should be firm and detailed; for work periods thereafter, the plans may understandably be less specific. Showing your plans reveals you to be a professional and also makes it possible for your client to suggest modifications. Getting your client into the act usually works to everyone’s benefit.

Exceeding expectations

A progress report should give your client a pleasant but mild surprise.

Notification that a new task has been started a few days before its scheduled beginning, three or four graphic aids, a technical appendix, some noticeable improvements in format are useful ways of cheering your client without undue labour or expense on your part.